by Mary McCoy
“To what do we owe the honor, Claudia?” Cal asked. He acted like Livia wasn’t even in the room, like she’d ceased to be an entity of any concern the moment she left Imperial Day and the Honor Council behind.
“We’re staying,” I said somewhat stupidly. Talking to Cal never got any less intimidating for me.
“Sure, that’s great. You’d be taking up space somewhere, it might as well be here.”
“What about the confidentiality of the court?” Astrid Murray piped up, suddenly a privacy advocate even though just a week before, I’d heard her gossiping about a juicy case they’d tried.
“Claudia and Livia are not here to spy on us.” Cal said it like he was addressing the Honor Council, but it was clear he was talking to Livia and me. “They are here because their minds are small and twisted, and we should show them today that whatever they think is going on in this court is simply not true. Jesse, your client is waiting outside. Let’s get started.”
Jesse Nichols went around the corner and I heard the door to the witness room swing open. A moment later, he came back, a terrified-looking Ruby Greenberg trailing behind him. If Jesse Nichols was my appointed representative, I’d be terrified, too. I wondered what she’d done, then I remembered that she was the editor of the Weekly Praetor, that she’d hesitated before offering Cal his weekly column, that she’d run that letter from Ms. Yee before she resigned. None of that was a crime, but I didn’t doubt it was the real reason Ruby Greenberg was here.
“Why are they here?” Ruby asked, her eyes darting over toward us, then back to Jesse, who, being 75 percent barnacle, looked to Cal for an answer.
“These girls are here today as impartial observers of the court,” Cal said. “That’s all right with you, isn’t it?”
Ruby nodded, and Cal began the hearing by reading the charges that had been brought against her.
The case against Ruby Greenberg was serious, and also, it wasn’t. In addition to her newspaper-editing gig, Ruby hung out with Imperial Day’s art scenesters and literary types and was always doing countercultural, subversive things, but only if she thought they would get her into RISD. No punk had ever taken so many Princeton Review SAT courses or earned so many attendance awards.
She was accused of painting a mural on the side of Imperial Day. It was a beautiful mural, everyone agreed on that, and no one wanted to take it down, but because it defaced the cornerstone that had been laid by homophobic tit Paul Chudnuff himself, and because no one seemed to remember authorizing the mural, it was technically a crime.
Jesse Nichols offered an indifferent defense against the facts of the case: Ruby thought she had permission. It was clear she hadn’t acted alone, but had been singled out to make an example of and she wasn’t naming any names. Chris Gibbons grumbled that she was uncooperative. That was what some of them really wanted, I could tell, an excuse to bring in more students and make them beg for mercy. There was nothing Cal liked quite so much as a girl who was afraid of him. Especially if she wore thigh-high boots and fishnet tights.
“Any closing statements?” Cal asked.
“Please,” Ruby said. “Please, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I’ll sandblast it off. I’ll do anything. Just please don’t suspend me.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Cal said with a wry smile that reminded Ruby and everyone else in the room that according to the Imperial Day Student Code of Conduct, the sentencing for vandalism started with suspension and went all the way up through expulsion.
Jesse Nichols led a near-tears Ruby back to the holding cell while the Honor Council prepared to deliberate. Astrid Murray and Chris Gibbons glared at me, like that might make me follow them, but Cal anticipated their irritation and said, “We have nothing to hide.”
As soon as they were out of the room, the Honor Council members circled up their chairs and fell silent until Kian said, “One-week suspension,” like it was the opening bid at an auction, or taking the temperature of the room to see what kind of justice people were hungry for that day.
There was a moment of silence, and then Chris Gibbons said, “One day. It would accomplish the same thing—you heard her.”
Oh Ruby, I thought, you should have held your cards closer to your chest. Never let them know what you’re afraid of.
“What if we told her to pay to have the mural removed?” Macro posited.
“What if she had to do it herself?” Chris suggested. “Obviously she didn’t act alone. If her friends’ consciences get the better of them, they’ll come out to help her.”
“Are we happy with this?” Cal asked. The others nodded their approval at Chris’s suggestion, then Cal raised his hand and said, “Clean-up duty it is.”
I thought, Is this it? I’d been looking for scandal and injustice, and what I’d seen was even-handed discussion. Thoughtful deliberation. Mercy. Not what I expected.
“Should I go get her?” Jesse asked.
“I’ll break the news to her,” Cal said. “No need to drag her back out here in front of all of you and do the whole suspense thing. We’re done here—you can all go.”
Cal disappeared around the corner and I heard the door to the holding cell click shut behind him.
“Was it all you hoped it would be, Claudia? Was it more?” Chris asked, his voice taunting. “Lots of good gossip to take back to your boyfriend?”
Astrid Murray chortled, and the two of them slung their bags over their shoulders and left together, still mocking us. I didn’t care. They could say whatever they wanted because in that moment, I actually felt like I’d done some good. Because Livia and I had been there, the Honor Council had decided to go easy on Ruby, to show us how merciful they were capable of being.
Before I could pat myself on the back too much, though, Livia got up from her chair and inclined her head toward the door. “Come on,” she said.
“Seen enough?” Kian asked. Oddly, it seemed like he was really asking. He was the only Honor Council representative besides Cal who hadn’t been irritated by our presence.
Livia made no distinction, though, turning on him like an owl that’s just spotted a rabbit.
“I saw that you wanted to suspend that girl for a week for painting a mural that everyone likes.”
Kian smirked at her. “Wasn’t that how you used to do it, Livia? Start high on the sentencing, then see if there’s anyone willing to argue down? That’s how I remember it being.”
Livia’s eyes flashed, and for a moment, I thought she was going to tear into him, a sophomore talking to her that way. Macro and Jesse Nichols watched, bloodlust in their eyes, but Livia disappointed them by marching out the door. I got up and hurried after her, not wanting to be left alone with those three.
The holding cell was empty, and when I looked out into the hallway, there was no sign of Ruby or Cal.
“Where are they?” I mouthed to Livia. She didn’t answer, but picked up speed as she headed out into the hallway, slamming the door shut behind us.
The last time Livia and I had been in this hallway together, I was lying on the floor gasping for breath, my ribs and sides aching where she’d kicked me. Now, when she looked at me, there was no rage, no hatred.
Instead, she said, “If you were Cal, where would you take Ruby Greenberg right now? If you wanted to ‘tell her something’?”
My eyes widened. Livia didn’t explain further, but she didn’t have to.
There were bathrooms on this floor, but they were the ones the Honor Council would have used. Tryouts for the spring play were going on in the theater, so the auditorium was out. The orchestra room was locked up.
It would be somewhere isolated, somewhere deserted, somewhere no one would have any reason to go. Somewhere far enough removed that they would not be seen or heard.
“The West Gym,” I said.
Livia nodded. “Locker room,” she added.
Together, we went down to the first floor, Livia racing down the halls toward the practice gym and me doing my best t
o keep up with her. This wasn’t the main gym with its glossy waxed floors and padded bleachers, filled every Friday night during basketball season. The West Gym had been untouched since the days of homophobic tit Paul Chudnuff when they tossed around medicine balls and climbed ropes. Now it was where we did yoga or self-defense or any physical activity deemed insufficiently masculine for the main gym.
Livia opened the door and closed it softly behind us. We slipped off our shoes and padded across the floor toward the locker room without speaking. We looked at each other once before reaching out together and pushing the door to the boys’ locker room open.
It was a cavernous room with high windows and poor ventilation. A hundred and ten years of stale sweat hung in the air. From behind a row of lockers, we heard a moan echo off the mosaic tile walls.
We closed the door behind us without a sound and crept around the corner, where we saw Cal sitting on a bench with his back to us. His pants were around his ankles. All I could see of Ruby were her fishnet tights and boots. The rest of her was hidden behind Cal’s torso.
“Isn’t this better than getting suspended?” Cal asked, then moaned again.
I turned my back on the scene and almost collided with Livia as I made for the door. She glared at me and raised a finger to her lips.
We could not be caught, she was saying. We had to leave the way we’d come in, undetected.
But Ruby, I thought. We couldn’t just leave her there.
“No,” I whispered, and then I ran for the door, making as much noise as I could, slamming doors behind me as loudly as they would slam. I picked up a half-inflated basketball and flung it at the locker room door, then Livia and I ran out of the gym.
I didn’t breathe until I was out of the locker room, out of the West Gym, down the hall, and out in the parking lot, struggling to keep up with Livia. And when I did breathe, I realized that we hadn’t made anything better. We hadn’t saved Ruby from anything. Instead, Cal did what he wanted, took what he wanted, just like he always did. I thought about Ruby. She thought her sentence was going to be a suspension. She’d never know that the rest of the Honor Council ruled for community service hours. I felt myself shudder involuntarily.
As I caught up to Livia in the parking lot, I braced myself for another earful accusing me of sabotaging her campaign, blaming me for everything that had happened, screaming that all of this was my fault, up to and including what Cal had done to Ruby Greenberg.
It didn’t happen. Instead, Livia froze in place. Her shoulders hunched forward and her mouth fell slack. Her arms hung limp at her sides until she drew one of her hands up, bringing it to rest on her cheek.
“We just left her there,” Livia said.
“No,” I said, “that’s not what happened. That’s not how it was. We tried.”
“It’s not enough. It’s never enough,” she said, and then her chin sank down into her chest and she began to cry.
It is a strange and terrible thing to watch your enemy cry when you know exactly how she feels. I was repulsed, disgusted, angry, frustrated, and I didn’t know what to do about any of it. I didn’t know how to make it stop. I understood completely why Livia was crying.
Her pain was my own, and if she had been anyone else, I would have tried to comfort her.
XLIV
There but Not There
There was nothing I could do to stop this or change it. I walked around school for the next few weeks, there but not there, my head spooling out ideas, each one more impossible and ineffective than the last. I was too ashamed to tell Hector what Livia and I had seen. I didn’t want him to know that we’d run out of the room without screaming our heads off or pulling a fire alarm.
I managed my Senate duties in a haze. During the Soren Bieckmann Memorial Valentine’s Day bouquet sale, I botched one tag after another, and probably contributed to at least one breakup through my negligence.
When I went to eighth period, there was a bouquet on my desk, once again with a card that read, YOU ARE A FORCE FOR GOOD IN THE UNIVERSE, and all I could think as I stuffed it back into the envelope was, I can’t even stop a high school despot from forcing a girl to suck his dick in the locker room.
I’m not a force for anything.
XLV
A Force for Good in
the Universe
The day before spring break was one of those shitty, stir-crazy, overcast days that everybody entered into with nobler intentions than they were able to realize. I had two midterms, a brutally dull discussion on Hard Times, which no one had read, and a physics lab before lunch, and not one teacher had had the decency to show a movie.
On my way to lunch, I stopped by my locker to drop off books before going to the cafeteria, and a note from Deep Throat fluttered out:
COME TO THE COURTYARD AFTER SCHOOL. THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED TO TELL YOU.
Deep Throat’s messages always had a sense of urgency about them, but this was unusually intense and cryptic. What was going to be waiting for me out in the courtyard? Another message? An ambush? Or was Deep Throat actually suggesting that we meet face to face?
It was burrito day in the cafeteria. No, I don’t remember what my grandmother looked like, but I remember that the day before spring break was burrito day. Probably the detail sticks because before receiving the message from Deep Throat I had expected the burritos would be the highlight of my afternoon.
There was a commotion as I approached the cafeteria, a scrum of bodies packed tightly around the door, the weird silence paired with scuffling feet and grunting and gasps that could only mean there was a fight happening.
Fights were rare at Imperial Day. They were considered gauche and simply not done, so things went on for a few moments before someone had the presence of mind to get an adult. By the time Mr. Woolf came barreling down the hall shouting, “Break it up! Break it up!” the novelty had worn off, and the crowd peeled back to reveal none other than Astrid Murray and Macro circling each other like wolves.
I pushed my way to the front and nudged a shell-shocked freshman named Jacob Lockhart.
“What happened?” I asked.
“She just went after him,” he whispered, keeping one eye on Astrid and Macro to make sure they didn’t hear him. “She grabbed him by the backpack and pulled him down.”
On the other side of the hallway, I saw Livia taking in the scene, her face twisted with equal parts contempt and frustration, and I had no trouble guessing what she was thinking in that moment: If I’d been elected president instead of Cal, none of this would be happening.
It was strange and sobering to find myself agreeing with the person who’d knocked me to the ground and kicked me hard enough to bruise my ribs. Livia was a corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative liar with a violent streak, and yet, under her watch, Honor Council representatives would not be attacking each other in the hallway like feral dogs; no one would have smashed up a tankful of turtles; no one would be demanding sexual favors for the promise of a lighter punishment.
Mr. Woolf took Macro, and a moment later, Mrs. DiVincenzo emerged from the cafeteria to escort Astrid to the main office. Even though the teachers kept them more than arm’s length apart, they snarled and swore at each other as they went down the hall.
In case you were wondering, both of them got off with a warning. I’m sure it was all extremely fair and impartial.
For the rest of the day, all anyone could talk about was the fight and what it meant. People theorized that factions were emerging; that having run out of civilians to prosecute, the Honor Council was finally turning on itself.
During my afternoon classes, I thought about Deep Throat’s note and wondered if it had anything to do with this. Where did Cal stand in all of it? Had he instigated the fight? Was there some sort of power struggle brewing?
I was so lost in thought that when the final bell rang, it took me a moment to realize that it was time, that soon I’d have some of the answers I’d been looking for—key among them, who had been passing info
rmation my way for the past two years.
The halls emptied out quickly as people burst from Imperial Day, eager to escape and taste freedom for ten days. I walked more slowly. I didn’t want to be the first to arrive in the courtyard. I wanted to have a chance to peer in through the window and see what I was walking into first.
It didn’t happen that way, though. We turned the corner at the same time, me from one hallway, him from the other. We walked toward each other, met at the courtyard door, and he said, “You came.”
“In my head, I’ve been calling you Deep Throat,” I said, remembering that I had seen him working the attendance desk in the front office. Really, it was the perfect job for a trusty, incorruptible Honor Council representative.
Kian Sarkosian stared blankly at me. Perhaps he had not thought about how this conversation was going to go because he looked down at his feet and stammered, then looked up and mumbled something in my general direction, and then finally shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You know—Nixon, Watergate,” I said, not expecting him to get those references either, but needing something to fill the silence. “You’re the one who called this meeting, you know.”
He recovered, and in that moment, I saw the difference between the bystander who’d watched Cal taunt Hector and me at The Last Bookstore and done nothing to stop it, and the steely-eyed Honor Council rep who’d held his own when I mouthed off to him.
“Woodward. Bernstein. I know,” he said, then added, “So you’ve been getting my notes?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
I hated the harshness in my tone, which was only there because I felt guilty. If I’d managed to do more—or anything—to stop Cal, Kian wouldn’t have to ask if I’d been getting his notes. He’d know.
He held the door open for me and we walked out to the courtyard in silence, taking a seat on the bench by the pond. Some of the underclassmen senators had raised the idea of getting new turtles, but Hector and I had vetoed it. It felt wrong somehow, too soon, so there was nothing in the pond now except for some hideous goldfish with bulging eyes that reminded me just a little of Astrid Murray.