Party Girl

Chapter Two

“Now that everyone’s got their assignments,” Chester Godwin, Editor-in-chief and co-founder of Chicago Pulse, looked around the crowded conference table, “no excuses for missing your deadline. You miss it, you're so dead to me you'll be writing obits until it's time to post your own. Now get outta here and start being brilliant. Except Hannah,” he added, glancing down at his phone as it suddenly vibrated against the table surface. “Hang back for a minute, yeah?”

“What's up, boss?” Gathering up her things, Hannah rounded to the head of the table where Chester had also come to his feet, his attention still on his phone. “Am I in trouble? I feel like I’ve been called to the principal’s office.”

Chester snorted. “You’re one of the most popular writers Chicago Pulse has. If management ever looked sideways at you, the whole damn city would riot. No,” he went on, plucking up his phone to waggle it at her. “Looks like Chicago Pulse is finally being taken seriously by the most ridiculously elitist private prep school in this region. Seriously enough, anyway, to have them extend an invite for Pulse to cover the legendary annual CATE Fete.”

She gasped. “No.”

“Yep. Last couple of years they've blown us off because we were so new. Now that Pulse has been around awhile and we've made some ripples and won a few awards, the bigwigs at CATE have obviously deigned to acknowledge our existence. You in?”

“Are you kidding? Hell, yes, I’m in.” Hannah caught the excitement in her voice, and she was glad to hear it. Ever since she’d been dosed while covering a nightclub opening, enthusiasm for her day job as a society columnist had waned to the point where she had to push herself to hit the party scene she’d once adored. But this new party on the horizon was different. It involved the most famous private school in Illinois and third-best prep school on the continent, Chicago Arts and Technology Education, or CATE. Of all the fancy balls and exclusive events she’d attended over the years, anything having to do with the legendary private prep school had simply been beyond her grasp.

Just as it had been beyond her grasp as a kid desperate to get away from a miserable homelife.

CATE had been established just after the Civil War so that the wealthy had a hoity-toity place to send their offspring, garnering for their progeny the best education money could buy. Throughout its storied history, half a dozen Supreme Court justices had attended CATE, as well as two astronauts, the current head of the CIA, a handful of A-list actors, the founder of one the biggest cable networks in the US, and two former presidents.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

To be accepted into CATE meant that person was destined for greatness. They didn't just let anyone walk through their twelve-foot high, wrought iron gates. She should know. She’d tried to get into CATE’s boarding school program from the moment she’d turned twelve and was eligible to apply. Every year she was rejected, much to her grandmother’s bitter glee and choruses of I told you you weren’t good enough. But it had always been her dream to belong there. Or at the very least, to see what was behind those high brick walls.

Now, she’d finally get that chance.

Better late than never.

“I’ve never been to a fete,” Chester muttered, scowling down at his phone as if it had somehow offended him. “I’ve been to political fundraisers, formal dinners, college keggers, proms, school dances, bashes, house parties, watch parties and that one memorable time an old girlfriend dragged me to a fucking luau. But never have I been to a fete.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I ask you, just how pretentious do you have to be to call a school’s annual scholarship fundraiser a fete?”

She lifted a shoulder. “The people in charge of it probably liked how the words rhyme—you know, CATE and fete? It’s cute.”

“I guess.” Chester made a face like he smelled something bad before thumb-typing on his phone. “I’m forwarding you the invitation and all the particulars. How we cover this CATE event will decide whether or not they open their doors for Chicago Pulse in the future.”

She tried to breathe through the sudden tension. “Right. No pressure there.”

“Exactly. Basically your standing orders on this assignment are ‘don’t fuck this up.’ Even if you find yourself having to rip off masks to expose whatever ugliness is hidden underneath, I need you to do it in the way you usually do.”

“The way I usually do?”

“When you write exposés, you always do it in such a nice way people don’t want to kill you once you’ve tricked them into spilling all their dirty little secrets. We’ll need that delicate touch when it comes to dealing with this school of special snowflakes.”

Was that supposed to be a compliment? “Um, thanks?”

“That said, I do still want you to dive deep into whatever you find there, understand? Take the story in whatever direction you want, work any angle. This is a rare opportunity to see behind the curtain, when the CATE trustees usually don’t let anyone in to breathe all that rarified air. You know that as well as anyone, since you tried to get into this fete thing last year.”

“I tried to get into CATE when I was growing up, too,” she admitted with a rueful sigh. “I sent in countless applications, hoping against hope they’d accept me, or at the very least acknowledge my persistence, but...” She shrugged. “I never made it. I was never special enough, just like my grandmother always said.”

“More likely you weren’t rich or important enough,” he muttered, his lips curling back in a sneer. “You weren’t the only kid they rejected. I tried to get into CATE, too.”

“Really?” she said, surprised. She would have thought a first-class brain like Chester Godwyn would have easily been accepted into CATE.

He nodded. “My old man even met with one of the counselors there to see what could be worked out. We were well off—my dad was a vice president of a Fortune 500 company based here in Chicago, and my mother was a chef at Fresca. Winners in the eyes of most people.”

“Wow, no kidding,” Hannah said, impressed. “I never knew my father, and my mother took off when I was ten to make it big in Nashville. Which never happened, in case you were wondering.”

“Guess we weren’t good enough to catch the eye of the CATE Board of Trustees,” came the wry response. “My parents were successful in their chosen professions, but neither one of them owned the businesses they worked for. That made them ordinary wage-slaves the world would forget the moment they shed their mortal coil. That’s what they were told when I was refused a spot at CATE, and I’ve never forgotten it. If I ever have a kid, I’ll make sure they never get it into their head that they want to go to a snob-infested place like CATE.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said, eyes wide. She’d always known CATE had exacting standards, but damn, that was harsh. “I just wonder... weren’t you ever curious about what was behind those tall brick walls even after you weren’t accepted into CATE?”

“What’s important is that a large portion of our readership has that exact curiosity,” came the quick reply. “So get a battle plan ready on how you’re going to cover all the possible questions every Chicagoan might have. CATE’s asking people for money during this annual shindig of theirs, right? Learn all you can about that school so people will know what kind of place their money’s going to if they decide to donate to the scholarship fund.”

“I can’t wait,” she said, head spinning with countless possibilities. “I’ll get a lay of the land, talk to everyone who works there, from custodians and cafeteria workers—who usually know the real story behind any business—all the way up to the Board of Trustees and the headmaster himself. Do you think he’d mind if I called him Dumbledore?”

“The school’s head is a woman, and you’re dead to me if you even think of trying it.”

“Party pooper. I’ll try to control myself.”