Page 77 of The Heiress
Chapter 23
Elisha
There was excitementin the hallways as I arrived at my locker to see a pink envelope taped to it. Not only mine, but all the lockers around me. The words on the front were:
You are invited...
It was a generic invitation, and I soon learned from Max that every year Addison O’Day invited her whole year group to her birthday party. It was always held in the O’Day house which was pretty spectacular by the sound of things.
This year’s theme was black and gold, and it was going to be a masquerade party with a chef making tacos, and they’d be a deejay and a photo booth. Previously, she’d had an actual circus tent erected in their yard, complete with trapeze artists, clowns, jugglers and magicians. It sounded like Addison O’Day liked to go big.
“Should we go?” Max asked.
“I wouldn’t set foot in the O’Day’s house if you paid me,” Phoenix said.
“But we went last year,” Max said.
“Yeah, because you were hot for Bianca,” Phoenix said. I’d been surprised to hear that Max and Bianca had dated briefly earlier in the year. Apparently she dumped him for someone who was now in college.
“It says here that Chef Caesar is a famous taco chef,” Max said.
“I’ve never heard of him,” Millie piped up.
“Why does she invite the whole class?” I asked. “I mean, she’s never spoken a civil word to me.”
“And she hates me,” Taylor said, the invitation crumpling in her hand.
“It makes her feel popular, I guess,” Max said with a shrug. “It was kinda fun last year. You gotta admit she throws a good party.”
Taylor shook her head in disgust and threw the card at his head. “Millie, did you go?”
“No!” Millie sounded aghast. “I don’t run in her circle. Besides, last year I went to Beth’s birthday party. It was on the same day.”
“Beth’s birthday is the same as Addison’s?” I asked, frowning because Beth hadn’t told me her birthday was coming up.
“Yeah, her parents came for the weekend and we went to dinner at La Maison. It was me and Rachel Climo, she was a senior and president of the Book Club.”
“What? And read books?” Tennessee, her boyfriend teased. Tennessee was tall and athletic, the wide receiver in the football team.
Millie poked him sharply, but she laughed. “It was awesome. Everything on the menu was related to Harry Potter. But you wouldn’t have gotten it because you’ve never read the books.”
“I’ve seen the movies,” Tennessee defended, and he affectionately tickled Millie beneath her chin, making her giggle. They were a cute couple.
I jammed the invitation into the middle of my statistics textbook and we dispersed to our classes. I didn’t give it another thought until English Lit class where Addison was taking center stage, touting her own party. Her voice grated on me so I refused to listen, hearing only blah, blah this and blah, blah that. Plenty of kids were enthralled by her though, or should I say, manipulated. The numbers game was important to Addison—she didn’t care if the kids were her friends or not, she just wanted to appear popular.
Because I was taking no notice of her, she made the point of approaching me, her voice sickly sweet. “Elisha? I take it you got my invitation? In case you didn’t know, my parties are legendary around these parts. And I don’t discriminate, the whole senior year is invited. You’d be doing yourself a favor by coming. And it might be the only one you get invited to here at Covington Prep.”
The audacity of the girl was astonishing! Her insolence and snide remark made me fume. But Addison didn’t wait around for my response. With a haughty flick of her hair, she waltzed over to target the next victim she could belittle. Like Phoenix, you couldn’t pay me to step foot in her house!
Back in the dorm, I was changing out of my uniform when Beth barged in with the times for the Christmas play auditions. With all of us lacking ambition in the performing arts, Beth had nonetheless convinced Millie, Taylor and I to try out for the student ensemble. I scanned the sheet to see we were due at four o’clock. Beth had auditioned yesterday and had the part of Bonnie, a mother of two, with over sixty lines.
“I suppose you got the invite to Addison’s party?” Beth asked meekly.
I reached out for my textbook and shook the pages till it fell out. “You mean this?”
“I guess you’ll be going? Everybody does.”
