Cruel Boys

by Nora Cobb

  “Not if the tabloids are right.” Theo pauses and avoids my gaze. “He has a major drug problem.”

  I know Silas’ weakness all too well.

  I sigh and stare at the mess on the counter. At Montlake, the whole school knew I had been in rehab, but at Redwood, no one knows. I never mentioned it on the application or in the office. It would have been insane to put that in writing. Who knows who would’ve seen it? Dad covered for me when we met with Jagan. He explained that his business interfered with my education, and later, the divorce. I missed a year of school as a result. Drugs were never mentioned, and Dad explained that my mother, Maya, lives in Palm Springs, and that is why he wished for me to live at home. Jagan understood. After all, Palm Springs is only an hour away.

  I place my forehead on the counter, and someone strokes my hair. How long will I be able to keep my dirty secret? I don’t think it will be for long.

  Chapter Eight

  Montlake will remain hidden in the past as I sail smoothly toward a golden future. My run for student council provides overnight notoriety. I’m not known as Vicki. Or even Victoria. I’m known as that insane girl running against Silas Vinson. Student council doesn’t give me street cred. Being a badass in art school won’t impress anyone unless I can produce astounding, jaw-dropping art films.

  On Fridays, I continue going to the cinematography club in Crenshaw Hall. My excitement kicks up as I open the heavy fire door, and cool air rushes around me as I run down the concrete stairs. I can tell who’s already in the room by their voices. I don’t conceal the big smile on my face when I walk through the door. I’m just glad to be here.

  “Vicki can decide,” announces Neil.

  My body stiffens, and I wait for it. I don’t have the film IQ these students have. I’m working my way through the hundred best films of all time, and I just made it to number twenty last night.

  “Let Vicki decide,” Rosie chimes in. “Pizza or deli.”

  I smile with relief. “Can SoCal do thin crust?”

  They moan at my legit question.

  “Hey, I’ve been to that California Kitchen and …” I shake my head.

  “You gotta go down by the beaches if you want good Italian food,” replies the new guy, Pierce.

  I give him a shy smile. “What if you want real Italian food?”

  Pierce holds his arms wide. “Then we go on a field trip downtown to Maccheroni’s.”

  Rosie frowns. “Palermo in Los Feliz.”

  In a second, everyone is talking and debating. “I don’t know where to go, but we’ve got to go on a road trip this weekend.” Neil holds his stomach, and groans with imaginary hunger.

  “Yes, a road trip to the beach.” I clap my hands together like a little kid. It has been a long time since I’ve had fun in school.

  “What’s going on?” Dom walks into the room, and my heart goes into my throat. The room settles down, and it’s obvious who the alpha is in the pack. Dom looks sexy in stained jeans and a black tank top that shows off his tanned, built arms. I imagine him carrying a surfboard along the beach and wearing a wetsuit. I have to turn away to keep from staring.

  Rosie answers. “We’re planning a road trip in search of Italian food.”

  Dom shakes his head. “Not the best plan unless you want a teacher tagging along. You know you can’t leave campus without a teacher unless you’re eighteen.”

  I’m not sure if I want to admit to being eighteen. Full disclosure might open a Pandora’s Box, inviting everyone into my business. I sure as hell don’t want to talk about my lost year when I was fourteen and in rehab. But there are seniors who commute, so they have to be at least eighteen too.

  “I’m eighteen,” I confess, shrugging my shoulders. “I have a driver’s license.”

  Dom laughs once. “I wouldn’t get into a car with you behind the wheel.”

  “What’s that mean?” I ask, my lips set in a frown.

  “It means you can’t handle the road. At least not here in California.”

  “Jersey invented the traffic circle,” I inform the room. “It’s you people who don’t know how to drive.”

  Dom laughs. “You should keep that to yourself.”

  He claps his hands together to get everyone’s attention. It’s time to start. Neil hands me the sign-in sheet, and I scribble down my name. I wonder if Don will comment on my bad handwriting.

  I watch him as he starts talking about the student film festival in the spring. The club works closely with the film faculty to make a memorable event that will build a portfolio. Everyone in the room pays attention to every word Dom says, but my mind drifts away, wondering why some days he is nice and other days he is a real asshole.

  “Do we enter our own films in the festival?” Liam asks. “Or do we pick films to be in the festival?”

  “It’s typically our own,” replies Dom, “but I was thinking that maybe we should get together and make one long format film instead of ten small crappy ones.”

  Neil laughs. “Hey, you haven’t even seen my crap yet. It could open the festival.”

  Dom smiles. “I’m open to having a vote, but I think it would be cool to have one big project.”

  Shrugging, I reply, “I think it’s a good idea.”

  Dom glances at me over his shoulder. “See there? Even Madame President agrees.”

  I smile tightly. It wasn’t much of a joke, but it wasn’t an insult either. I can’t figure out what makes him act nice one day and like a shit on other days. I wish he would just tell me.

  “I have an idea for a film.” Lucy rarely talks. She has to be the quietest person I’ve ever met. It is so rare for her to speak that when she does, everyone shuts up to listen. It’s like watching a flower that only blooms once a year.

  Dom walks over to her and sits down in the chair beside her. “What’s your idea?”

  “I’d like to do an updated version of Snow White but using the seven deadly sins.” She looks at us with a beaming face. “We could each direct a segment in the larger film like Sin City.”

  Dom nods his head. “Do the dwarves represent the deadly sins?”

  She bobs her head with excitement. “Yes, that’s why I think it would be so cool.”

  Dom looks at us. His expression is open, and it’s the first time he’s shown a sincere interest in anything. “I like it.”

  Lucy smiles. “I have some drawings on my phone.”

  Dom scrolls through Lucy’s phone as the rest of us crowd around. We start to bounce ideas off each other about the festival. Deciding on who might direct which theme. Where to get costumes, and who should act in it. Maybe we can set up the screening rooms to have a matching theme. We’re so wrapped up in it, we don’t notice the time. It’s dark outside by the time we leave the basement.

  I walk with Dom toward the parking lot. He’s allowed to have a car on campus. And I’m sort of curious to see what he drives. It’s a balmy night, with a warm breeze, but the humidity is low. The darkness past the lamplights is pitch-black, and frogs chirp as we walk past a creek to our cars.

  “Hey, that was really nice of you,” I tell him.

  “What was?” he asks, furrowing his brow.

  “Listening to Lucy. Freshmen are usually ignored.”

  Dom scoffs. “I didn’t talk to her to impress you.”

  I frown at him. “We should add an eighth sin—being an asshole.”

  He laughs. “I’ve noticed you like to say that word a lot.”

  “Fuck you,” I reply, wishing I had kept my mouth shut.

  “And that too,” he laughs harder.

  “Why are you nice some days and not others?”

  He stares at me, and it makes me squirm. Theo was right. I ask too many questions.

  “Palermo has the best pizza,” says Dom, ignoring my question. “I’ll take you there after the election to celebrate.” He stares at me, and his expression shifts from tense to calm. “Good night, Vicki,” he whispers.

  I walk to my car alone t
hen turn back to look. Dom stands there for a moment, gazing at me, and I think my knees will tremble. Maybe he was being polite or maybe not. I’m not a sappy kind of person. Lovesickness is for fools. But I’m feeling like a fool tonight.

  ***

  I gun it out of there. And when I get home, Dad is still up and hanging out in front of the television. The house doesn’t have a basement but a sunken living room instead. Dad asked the realtor if it was on purpose. Satisfied that the house was not sliding slowly down the hill, Dad had it redesigned after we bought it and had built-in seating put in. It’s sort of weird. We walk down into it, and it’s like sitting on padded steps in a pit full of pillows and cushions.

  I hand him the invite for parents’ weekend. He holds it a mile away from his face, and squints at the paper.

  “You want me to read it to you?” I ask.

  He sighs and hands it back to me.

  “Welcome, Parents,” I read in a loud, booming voice. “Redwood Academy invites you to see how we are spending your money.”

  Dad snatches it back and swats me on the head. “Just tell me the date.” He gets up and goes into his office to find his glasses.

  I giggle, following him. “Next weekend on Saturday around noon.”

  Dad looks at me. “How long has this been in your locker?”

  “I don’t use my locker,” I arch my brow. “I dump my stuff in my car.”

  He shakes his head in disgust.

  “It’s clean.” I take a lot of pride in my vintage Mustang. Well, it isn’t that old, but it’s from 2012, the year when they reissued the Boss.

  I shrug and lean on him, resting my chin on his shoulder while he sits at his desk. I’ve always liked this big oak desk. The left side has notch marks where he would measure my height and Troy’s when we were toddlers. Dad had to fight for it in court. Mother only wanted it because Dad loved it so much. She was offended that Dad paid more attention to his desk than to her. She didn’t fight him for custody of me, though. If she had, I would have screamed.

  I wrap my arms around his neck. “Are you coming, Daddy?”

  He looks at me and smiles. “Of course. I’m yours for the entire day.

  ***

  The club is hyped on Lucy’s suggestion, and on Monday, I want to do some research behind the history of the seven sins. The campus is amazing first thing in the morning, and I like walking from the trail to the main campus. If I squint, I can pretend I’m in the woods and not at a boarding school. It strikes me that I could film here. I pick up speed and hurry toward the library. I’m sure someone else has also thought of it, but I know our segments will all look different no matter where we shoot them.

  When I approach the library, I notice something wrong. We aren’t allowed to hang posters on the trees, but there are bulletin boards spread throughout the campus. I look around, and all my posters are gone, including the cool anime one that Theo drew of me. That one is so good that people were taking selfies with it.

  I try not to look upset, but I am. Instead of going to the library, I turn left and head for the resident center. If there are no posters on the walls, then something is wrong. When I walk in, I’m watched by the kids who are loitering around the main entrance. At Montlake, the kids would stare as if you were on their screen. But at Redwood, they’ve perfected the side-eye. The very first poster I hung up is gone. I cling to my cool as I walk toward the side door.

  “Hey, Vicki,” some random girl approaches me. “Are you still running for president?”

  I glare at her like I would go bowling with her fat head.

  “Yes.” My tone is tight. “I hope you will vote.”

  She smiles like she has gotten something over me, but she doesn’t mean a thing. Quickly, I cross the quad and knock on Theo’s window. He opens it up and arches an eyebrow at my nuttiness.

  “Let me in.” I hop up on the sill. “Just open the screen.”

  I climb into the window with such grace that he stares like I’ve done a backward flip. “I’ve had a lot of practice climbing into windows in the middle of the night,” I explain. “Theo, my posters are missing.”

  “Really?” He looks out the window as if he can see. “Where’d they go?”

  I shove his shoulders. “I’m guessing they pulled them down.”

  “Here, let me figure it out.” Theo grabs his phone. “I’m on a message board, and if something is going on, they’ll know.” He huffs. “I didn’t know you were twenty-one.”

  “I’m not.” I stand behind him, hanging over his shoulder. The title of the thread is “The Life and Times of Lil’ Vicki.” There’s only one post that says I’m too old for high school except for buying liquor.

  I throw my hands on my hips. “I thought you guys didn’t pull this shit in art school.”

  “Art school, private school, public school—people are tools wherever you go.”

  I rub my temples. “Is there anything else?”

  “Nothing,” he scrolls as he talks, “but it seems when they get more, they’ll post more.”

  I sink down on the couch and stare at nothing.

  Theo looks at me with concern and tosses his phone on his bed. “Vicki, you okay?”

  I shake my head. “You know, I was on drugs. And then I was in rehab.”

  “A lot of people were. Are.” He corrects himself. “Deals are made in rehab.”

  “At fourteen?” I pull my knees to my chest. “I missed a year of school because of it. I really didn’t want anyone to know.” I can handle the blonde jokes and the cracks about Jersey, but drug addiction is not a joke to anyone who has lived through it. My big brother Troy thought he saved me when he found me in a dope house, but all he did was open another door to a new world of misery.

  “It’s a thin excuse, but misery loves company,” he replies, rubbing my shoulder. “More people here have done drugs than haven’t. Everyone’s been there.”

  I wipe my tears away on the back of my hand. “I don’t want to go back again.”

  ***

  Parents’ weekend is a bigger deal than I thought. Redwood is decorated with eco-friendly decorations—rice-paper lanterns and garlands, biodegradable confetti made from petals scattered on cloth tablecloths, beeswax pillar candles, and felt party hats. Jagan wears a suit with a Nehru collar and closed-toe sandals. He speaks in complete sentences that come to an end when I reintroduce him to Dad.

  “Nice to meet you again, Mr. Saunders.” Jagan shakes Dad’s hand heartily. “We are so proud of Vicki. New students don’t normally run for student council. Her determination will take her places.”

  Dad nods his head. “Thank you, Jagan.” We move along the path toward a canvas tent decorated with biodegradable streamers. “He seemed normal,” Dad whispers.

  “He’s on his best behavior,” I reply softly. “He’s expecting a donation.”

  We enter the food tent, where most of the parents are congregating to get away from the sun and to drink. Tables are lined up in rows, with six seats at each table. Student volunteers serve canapés and bottled water. If someone wants something harder, they have to pay at the bar. What type of alcohol they are serving is a big question. Homebrewed elderberry cordial probably won’t please this crowd. Several of the parents are seated in groups, and judging from the loud voices, they have been drinking from the bar. After we get our plates, I glance around, and I’m one of the few students sitting with a parent.

  “Sweetheart. Sweetheart.” A man in a white suit holds up his hands and snaps his fingers. The student volunteers give each other an apprehensive look, and eventually, one goes to the table. The man’s gaze moves up and down her body. His stare pauses at her chest and then her ass when she turns. He folds his lips into his mouth and licks them as he strokes his fingertips on the tablecloth. It’s gross the way he’s staring at all the young girls.

  Finally, he looks up into her face. “That took long enough,” he sneers. “Couldn’t decide who wanted a tip?”

  I frown as the man
snakes his arm around the young girl serving bottled water, his fingers digging into her waist. I don’t recognize her from senior meetup, so she’s probably an underclassman. She’s very pretty, with a long braid draped over her shoulder, and a white T-shirt worn with black shorts. She doesn’t look happy that the older man is touching her, and she tries to move away.

  I miss what she says, but I can hear what he says.

  “No.” His slurring words carry. “I want you to take your sweet little ass over to the bar and get the drink for me. Understand”

  She says something that doesn’t please him.