Brooke glanced at the day’s absentee sheet on her desk. “Really? Because she’s not on the list today.”

“Yeah, I know. She was in my office earlier today and she looked horrible, so I sent her to the nurse and the nurse sent her home. I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but I just wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Heather turned to leave, but Brooke called out, “How did she seem to you? Other than feeling ill.”

Heather appeared to think about this. “You know, it’s hard to say. It was only our first meeting since last year, and she didn’t really open up. I’ve heard some rumblings from the other girls that Kaylie befriended Whitney Weiss, which gives me pause for obvious reasons, but Kaylie didn’t bring it up. I will say that it definitely looks like she lost a significant amount of weight.”

Brooke’s head snapped up. “How much would you say is significant?”

“I don’t know . . . twenty, maybe twenty-five pounds? She looked terrific, actually. She seemed really pleased with herself.” Heather noticed that Brooke looked worried. “Why? Is that bad?”

“Not necessarily, but that’s an awful lot of weight to lose in a short amount of time. And the whole Whitney friendship? Let’s just say that together, I think there’s a red flag there.”

Heather nodded. “Well, I think at this point you’ll see her before I do, but keep me in the loop, okay?”

Brooke said good-bye to Heather and leaned back in her chair. Twenty-five pounds was actually an enormous weight loss over two and a half months, and the Whitney connection wasn’t comforting. Whitney was an extremely slim girl who had put on five or seven pounds after she quit playing field hockey the previous year, and her underweight mother had immediately shown up in Brooke’s office demanding the name of a reputable “fat camp,” as the woman so crudely put it. All of Brooke’s vehement protestations that it was a completely normal, even welcome, amount of weight gain for a growing fourteen-year-old girl made no difference, and Whitney was sent to a posh camp upstate to “work it off.” Predictably, the girl had begun to show signs of bingeing and purging since then, something to which Kaylie certainly didn’t need any exposure. She made a mental note to call Kaylie’s father after their first meeting and see if he’d noticed anything unusual about her behavior.

She made a few notes about her earlier sessions and then left, the suffocating blanket of early September humidity hitting her like a wall as all thoughts of taking the subway went straight to hell. As though an angel above had read her mind or, more likely, a Bangladeshi taxi driver had seen her frantic arm-waving, a cab pulled directly up to the school’s entrance to dispatch a customer and Brooke fell into the air-conditioned backseat.

“Corner of Duane and Hudson, please,” she said as she moved her legs closer to the cold air pouring from the vent. She spent the entire duration of the ride with her head back and her eyes closed. Just before the taxi pulled up to Nola’s building, a text came in from Julian.

Just got an e-mail from John Travolta!!! Says he “loves” the new album and congratulated me on it, it read.

Brooke could feel Julian’s excitement through the screen. John Travolta?! she texted back. No way! So awesome.

He wrote it to his agent and agent forwarded it to Leo, Julian responded.

Congrats! Very cool. That’s a keeper, she wrote, and then followed it up with, At Nola’s now. Call when you can. Xoxo.

Nola’s one-bedroom was at the very end of a long hallway, and it overlooked a trendy café with outdoor tables. Brooke walked straight through the propped-open door, dumped her bag while simultaneously kicking off her shoes, and beelined for the kitchen.

“I’m here!” she shouted as she helped herself to a can of Diet Coke from the fridge. Her favorite guilty pleasure, and one she allowed herself only at Nola’s apartment.

“There’s Diet Coke in the fridge. Grab me one, too!” Nola screamed out from the bedroom. “I’m almost finished packing. I’ll be right out.”

Brooke cracked open both their cans and walked back to hand one to Nola, who was sitting in a massive pile of clothing, shoes, cosmetics, electronics, and guidebooks.

“How the fuck do they expect me to get all this stuff into a backpack?” she snapped, trying to cram a round brush into the pack’s front pocket and, when she failed, flinging it across the room. “What was I thinking, signing up for this?”

“I have no idea,” Brooke said, surveying the chaos. “I’ve actually been asking myself that for about two weeks now.”

“This is what happens when your vacation time doesn’t roll over and you don’t have a boyfriend—you make decisions like this. Sixteen days with eleven strangers in Southeast Asia? Seriously, Brooke, I blame you for this.”

Brooke laughed. “Nice try. I told you it was the worst idea I’d ever heard the moment you floated it, but you were very determined.”

Nola pulled herself up, took a sip of Diet Coke, and walked to the living room. “I should be a cautionary tale for single women everywhere. No impulsive, last-minute group tours. Vietnam is not freaking going anywhere—what was my big rush?”

“Oh come on, it’ll be fun. Besides, maybe there’ll even be a cute guy in your group.”

“Uh-huh. Sure there will be. Definitely not a bunch of middle-aged German couples or wannabe Buddhist hippies or, possibly, all lesbians. No! It’ll be chock-full of adorable, eligible men aged thirty to thirty-five.”

“I like your positive attitude!” Brooke said with a grin.

Something caught Nola’s eye and she moved toward the living room window. Brooke glanced out and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“At that first table all the way on the left? Natalie Portman? Wearing that little pageboy cap and sunglasses as a disguise, as though her essential Natalie Portman-ness doesn’t shine right through?” Nola said.

Brooke looked again, this time noticing the girl in the cap as she sipped from her wineglass and laughed at something her dinner partner said. “Mmm, yeah, I think that probably is her.”

“Of course it is! And she looks freaking fantastic. I can’t figure out why I don’t hate her. I should, but I don’t.” Nola cocked her head to the side but never took her eyes off the window.