The Mary Shelley Club

by Goldy Moldavsky

  Which was fine until Ms. Liu started going around the class asking who we’d chosen to write our term papers on.

  “Patricia Highsm—” Bram started to answer.

  I cut in. “Mary Shelley.”

  Across the room, Thayer howled. Bram’s nostrils flared. And Ms. Liu told us we’d chosen wonderfully.

  * * *

  At lunch I decided to scour social media looking for more info on the Mary Shelley Club members. Felicity didn’t appear to have Insta. Bram’s was private, but he was all over Lux’s grid posing behind flattering filters, nuzzling her neck, and occasionally pulling silly faces. It wasn’t a side of him I’d ever seen.

  Someone cleared their throat dramatically behind me.

  “Saundra! Hi.” I quickly shoved my phone into my book bag.

  She sat down next to me pointedly, tore into her slice of sourdough pointedly, and chewed. Pointedly. The point clearly being that she wasn’t talking to me. Which I fully deserved.

  “I’m sorry about the way I acted yesterday,” I said. “I was a jerk. A really awful, big, obnoxious jerk.”

  “I’m listening,” Saundra said.

  “I’m just going through some weird stuff. Everyone at school thinks I’m a lunatic and Lux McCray wants me dead and I’m pretty sure I flunked my bio quiz.”

  “Go on…”

  “I’m sorry I freaked. I can’t believe you still want to sit next to me after the way I acted. I’m lucky to have you as a friend.”

  I could tell Saundra was softening because when she sipped her kombucha through her stainless-steel straw, it was decidedly unpointedly. But to make sure I was fully back on her good side, I cleared my throat and nodded at the popular lunch table.

  “Bram looks … nice today.” The truth was, Bram didn’t look any different than he normally did, but this was my olive branch.

  Just like that, Saundra’s face lit up and any awkwardness was swept away. It was the regularly scheduled Bram News Network, where Saundra was both the anchor and the pundit, delivering the latest breaking news. Right now she was reflecting on what his best feature was, but as I glanced over, all I could focus on was Bram’s imperfections. A slight gap between his front teeth. Eyes darker than an abyss. The kind of shiny chestnut hair that belonged in a barbershop window display. Okay, I guess some people might find those faults charming. He looked up, sensing my gaze, and I quickly dropped my eyes to my sandwich.

  Saundra droned on, and much like with cable news, I sat and absorbed all of it without really knowing why. As my brain turned numb, I knew I had to do something before I face-planted into my grilled cheese.

  “We’re kind of partners on a school project,” I blurted.

  Saundra’s eyes bugged out of her head. “You’re what?”

  “Yeah. So that’s gonna be fun.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like it’s not going to be fun?”

  “Because Bram is…” I glanced at his table. “He’s, like, impenetrable. He doesn’t say much and he sort of looks angry all the time.”

  “Bram’s a sweetheart.”

  “Okay, there’s gotta be a reason you keep saying that about him.”

  “There is.” Saundra leaned back in her seat and lifted her eyes dreamily toward the fluorescent lights above us, already lost in a memory. “It happened on an Upper Lower School class trip to the Empire State Building.”

  “Upper Lower?”

  “The two highest grades in the Lower School got to go. We were in fifth grade. Anyway, we got up to the Observation Deck and I got really dizzy. Right when I thought I was going to throw up or pass out or pee myself, Bram appeared next to me. I was so embarrassed that he was seeing me at my worst.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  “It was amazing,” Saundra continued. “Bram took me to a quiet corner and held my gross, sweaty hand, and told me to look at him and keep breathing. Fifth-grade Bram did that. He was so composed and mature, even back then. He didn’t let go of my hand the entire time, not until Mr. Porsif told us it was time to go. I still hate heights, but I’d go back to the top floor of the Empire State Building if Bram asked me to.”

  I tried to reconcile fifth-grade Bram with the Bram I knew. But the truth was, I really didn’t know too much about him. Just one of his secrets. But we all had secrets.

  “What do you know about Felicity Chu?” I asked. While I had Saundra’s encyclopedic knowledge at my disposal, I might as well use it. Anything to keep her from going on about Bram.

  “Felicity Chu?” Saundra looked behind her, as though Felicity was lurking somewhere close by, a vampire ready to strike. But as far as I could tell, Felicity wasn’t in the cafeteria.

  “She’s freaky,” Saundra said. “Why do you want to know about her?”

  “Just curious. Her locker’s close to mine. What’s so freaky about her?”

  Saundra fixed me with a wide-eyed look, like the answer was obvious. “Black lipstick.”

  I rolled my eyes, but Saundra didn’t let up. “I’m serious. That is a choice when her mom is the CFO of Isee Cosmetics—she can have all the lipstick shades she wants. It’s a real shame we’re not friends.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Okay, how about the fact that she hates everybody? And she’s got a weird crush on Stephen King. Who has crushes on authors? Old authors.”

  “She reads a lot. Doesn’t mean she has a crush on the author.”

  “She has a black-and-white picture of him hanging in her locker.”

  “Oh.”

  “Plus, I think all those horror novels are going to her head. Giving her ideas.”

  I kept my voice casual. “What do you mean?”

  “She got suspended last year for kicking Alexandra Turbinado in the crotch during Pottery elective. And then again for doing the same thing to Reggie Held. Which is extra weird because everyone takes Pottery to, like, relax, or fall in love, or whatever, but it just made Felicity super aggressive.”

  Definitely not something I would’ve found on Felicity’s Instagram. Being friends with Saundra was proving beneficial. “Thayer Turner?”

  Saundra looked at me funny and I realized that to her, it just seemed like I was rattling off a random list of Manhattan Prep weirdos. “Um, just curious because he seems nice. He let me borrow his notes.”

  “I wouldn’t use those. All he does is goof off in class. Just another boy who thinks he’s a lot funnier than he actually is. He’s only still here because of his parents.”

  “Really? He seems like a normal kid to me.”

  “That’s all part of the media-ready package,” Saundra said, taking a sip of her kombucha. “Thayer’s dad made him get a normal job at a movie theater so he can tell everyone his son is just like any other teenager. I assume Thayer goes along with it for the free popcorn. Who keeps texting you?”

  I hadn’t even realized that my phone had been buzzing in my backpack. Nothing got past Saundra. I fished it out.

  Meeting at this address tonight. 9pm. Freddie.

  “Who’s it from?” Saundra prodded. “Some sort of emergency?”

  I didn’t want to lie to her, but I was bound to a secret now. “No, just a friend from back home.”

  My phone vibrated again. I quickly peeked down, avoiding Saundra’s searching gaze.

  Don’t worry. No kidnapping this time.;-)

  14

  IT WAS RAINING, and as I stood under my umbrella, looking up at the building at the address from Freddie’s text, I felt like I was about to enter the mansion in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  I was on the Upper East Side, just a few blocks from Manchester. The closer you got to Central Park, the nicer the buildings became, with elegant awnings and doormen in gold-trimmed uniforms poised just beyond glass doors. But the buildings that were even fancier than that didn’t have doormen or lobbies. Some of them were small museums or the headquarters of societies, with crests next to their imposing
double doors and ivy crawling up their walls; others were beautiful private residences. This place didn’t have any gold plaques, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a museum. But it was still a beautiful limestone townhouse that probably cost more than my life.

  I’d tried asking Freddie more questions by text, about who lived here and what we’d be doing tonight, but he’d remained evasive. So I rang the bell and waited.

  Bram opened the door, looming large in the frame.

  His usual oxford shirt and tie had been replaced by sweats and a black T-shirt with a skull snapping back its jaw. My brain seemed to glitch whenever I was alone with Bram and the first thing I said was “Is this your house?”

  “Yes.”

  If Saundra only knew I was here right now. She’d freak.

  “Are you going to come inside?” Bram said. “You’re letting in the rain.”

  I stepped over the threshold, shaking droplets off my umbrella.

  “I’ll take it,” Bram said. He dropped it in a pewter bin next to the door and then held out his hand. I hesitated until I realized that he was reaching for my jacket. The whole exchange stretched on for an impossibly long and silent minute, with the only sound in the grand entryway the shuffle of my wet raincoat slipping off my shoulders and the clinking of hangers in the coat closet.

  And all the while, I could smell the pine-and-lime scent of his shampoo.

  “Hey. I’ve been meaning to apologize,” I said. “For what happened outside the house in Williamsburg?”

  What happened outside the house in Williamsburg was my way of not saying when I foisted myself on you like a creep. I cleared my throat to offset the burning in my cheeks. “I was drunk and I thought you were somebody else, obviously. I know you’re with … with someone, and it was wrong and I feel horrible about it and it was a mistake.”

  As I talked, Bram watched me with the disinterested look of a DMV employee, though the color in his cheeks seemed to deepen. Maybe it was a trick of the light.

  “So, yeah,” I said finally. “Sorry.”

  When Bram did speak, it was only to say, “Okay.”

  It wasn’t much, but I took it as a sign that we could finally put that mortifying episode behind us. And maybe this quasi truce would extend to Lux. Maybe if Bram and I could be cool, then Lux and I could be civil toward each other.

  Never had so much hope been squeezed out of a tiny “okay.”

  “Everyone else is already in the study,” he said.

  I nodded like all of this was normal. The conversation we’d just had. That this place had a study.

  “Um, which way do I go?” Bram’s townhouse was huge, and as I glanced around I realized that the Wildings were rich. Like rich rich. This place must’ve been two townhouses put together. There were an impossible number of doorways, all leading to high-ceilinged rooms filled with oil paintings and lavish furniture. I could see myself quickly getting lost, and I didn’t want to be late for my first club meeting.

  Bram gestured toward a winding grand staircase that sprouted from the foyer. As I started to climb it, I remembered the last night I’d spent at my friend Amy’s house back on Long Island, over a year before. I’d decided to walk the five blocks home, and the entire time I could’ve sworn someone was following me. On that quiet night with no cars on the street or people on the sidewalks, all I could sense was my pulse pounding in my ears and what I was sure was someone’s eyes boring into my back.

  I felt that way now, the difference being that I wasn’t imagining someone behind me. I could feel Bram’s gaze like a hand brushing the back of my neck.

  When we got to the second floor, we walked toward a light at the end of the hallway. The study was lit with warm lamplight and wall sconces and smelled faintly of the leather-bound books that crammed the bookcases along the walls. There were priceless accoutrements adorning the shelves—a Grecian urn glazed in turquoise, a charcoal sketch of an abstract nude figure, a brass ballerina being used as a bookend. I spotted a small painting of a blocky lady. I took a second to wonder if it was a Picasso before I realized that of course it was. You probably couldn’t own a place like this if you didn’t have a Picasso.

  It turned out my mom had been right when she’d said private school would expand my world. Normally, I would have to go to the Met to see the things that Bram’s family used as paperweights.

  There was a large rosewood desk in front of casement doors that opened onto a balcony, and in the center of the room were a couch, a chair, and a chaise longue. Freddie, Felicity, and Thayer were spread amongst the furniture, limbs splayed with the kind of informal ease that comes from being deeply familiar with a place. Like animals in their natural habitat.

  “Hiya, New Girl,” Thayer said.

  “You made it,” Freddie said, flashing me a smile from the chesterfield sofa. He patted the space beside him, but under Bram’s scrutiny, I suddenly felt shy and sat at the other end of it, leaving a gulf of chocolate-brown leather between us. Felicity didn’t say anything at all.

  At last, Bram sat in a tufted armchair. He may have been wearing sweats, but he still looked filthy rich and aloof in the big, throne-like chair. I couldn’t help but think: Bram, in the study, with the candlestick.

  “Let’s get started.” He reached for a remote on the side table and clicked a button.

  A projection screen lowered in front of the built-in bookcase and Felicity stood up to hit the lights.

  Freddie leaned over. “We like to begin our meetings with a scary movie,” he said.

  “Pick one,” Bram said, nodding at me. He grabbed a keyboard and balanced it on his knees, his fingers poised, waiting for my cue. It felt like a challenge, one that he wanted me to fail.

  As I held his gaze, my mind began to race. Was this another test? Like Thayer’s twenty questions at the haunted house? For all I knew this club was all about trashy B movies or torture porn. What if they only liked highbrow stuff—the Oscar-nominated shininess of Get Out or The Silence of the Lambs? If I picked a classic, would that make me boring? The Exorcist was my favorite horror film, but they’d probably seen it a million times. What if I picked something none of them found particularly scary? Some people considered Gremlins for kids, but those little monsters were pretty traumatizing. I could go obscure and pick something none of them had heard of, but would that make me a pretentious try-hard? If I picked Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan would they just kick me out of the club immediately?

  Who was I kidding? I would never in good conscience pick Jason Takes Manhattan.

  And now I was taking too long. The room was all piercing stares, and I was the pincushion. I decided to go with something that covered all my bases. A B-movie classic.

  “Black Christmas.”

  “Original, remake, or remake of the remake?” Felicity asked.

  “Don’t insult the girl,” Freddie said, his voice laced with amusement.

  “Original,” I said.

  Bram’s fingers danced over the keyboard, and on the screen, one file opened after another until a list of scary movies appeared.

  “Behold, Bram’s Ultimate Collection of Horror,” Thayer announced. “True story: His parents once stumbled upon this hallowed list while curled up on the couch looking for Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. So horrified were they by the disturbing array showing their golden boy’s pent-up aggression that they proposed sending our dear Bram for psychoanalysis.”

  “And what happened?” I couldn’t tell if Thayer was joking.

  “He talked his way out of it, of course!” Thayer said.

  “Champion of the debate team!” Freddie said.

  “Voted most likely to host a talk show!” Felicity added.

  “Guinness World Record-holder for biggest talker ever!” Thayer said.

  They were obviously ribbing him, but Bram seemed to enjoy it because he did something I hadn’t ever seen him do. He smiled. Then he clicked play and the words Black Christmas appeared on the screen in gothic white outl
ine.

  Thayer rubbed his hands together and grinned with excited anticipation. “Holiday movies always give me the warm fuzzies.”

  * * *

  An hour and a half later and Thayer’s warm fuzzies were still intact. He sighed, deeply satisfied. “Awesome.”

  Just one word, but it filled me with the confidence that I’d made the right choice. I fought to keep from beaming.

  “You think every horror film is awesome,” Freddie said.

  Confidence gone.

  “It’s only awesome if you enjoy the voyeurism of tormenting a houseful of nubile young girls,” Felicity said.

  I shot Felicity an incredulous look. Voyeurism? Well, yeah, but 80 percent of all horror was voyeuristic. Also, nubile? That word had the biggest ick factor. But I didn’t say any of that. I was new to this group. I needed to tread carefully.

  “Not to mention the misogyny,” Felicity went on.

  Screw it. Careful treading was for wimps. “You could look at it like that,” I said, “Or you could say that slashers actually give the F inal Girl the kind of agency that women in other film genres never experience.”

  There was a moment of silence as the others turned to look at me. I sank into my corner of the chesterfield a little, wondering if I’d spoken out of turn. But Felicity actually looked thrilled, like a stray cat presented with a bowl of fresh milk.

  “Yeah, at the end,” Felicity said. “Until then, it’s just an hour of sorority girls running around naked—”

  “—not in this movie.”

  “—or waiting by the phone,” Felicity continued. “Such a tired sexist trope.”

  “This is the first major introduction to the call-coming-from-inside-the-house plot twist,” I said. “It should be given credit for that.”

  Felicity rolled her eyes. “When a Stranger Calls did it better.”

  “You’re missing the point. In a movie like this, the female lead takes control of her life.”