An Education in Ruin

by Alexis Bass

  “Are you staring at my brother?” Theo’s voice has a teasing tone and isn’t at all mean. But my face gets hot. If he’s noticed this slight glance, has he noticed all the other millions of times I’ve stared at Jasper since the start of the school year? At Theo’s comment, the entire table turns toward the direction I was looking to watch Jasper escape out the west exit.

  “How mysterious, eh?” Matt laughs. He elbows me playfully.

  “My brother? Mysterious?” Theo directs all his attention to me, and I must say, I do feel like the sun is beating down directly on me. Theo’s being as friendly as ever. But my face still reacts with intense heat and probably the accompanying redness.

  I will my expression to relax into a smile. Play it cool. “Maybe you can clear up some of the mystery?”

  Theo smiles and leans toward me. “I’d be happy to.”

  This is a natural progression, I decide. This line about finding Jasper mysterious, it could be planting a seed. Adding to my story, so that in a few months, when Jasper is hopelessly in love with me, all of them will recall this conversation and think, Aha, I know exactly how this started for her. I can roll with this—yes. It’s better this way.

  “What do you want to know about him? Go ahead, try me.”

  “It seems like all he does is study.” This is also a guess as to what he’s doing when he leaves dinner early every day.

  Theo laughs. “That’s all we all do.”

  This is inarguable—even though it’s barely been two weeks, I am sometimes having to skip dinner myself, in need of extra time to do homework and finish reading assignments before the eleven o’clock bed checks, when lights must be out, no exceptions.

  “But I never see him having any fun—I don’t know. That’s the impression I’ve had of him since he led my calculus overview at the start of the year.”

  “Honestly?” Theo says. “Your initial impression of him being not very fun, uptight, and school-obsessed, with no work-life balance, is completely right. He’s not mysterious, he’s boring. And I’m allowed to say that because I’m family. So it comes from a place of love.”

  “But where does he go every day during dinner?”

  “Probably anywhere there isn’t a crowd and no one will annoy him.”

  I don’t know what to say to this. It seems like a not-so-subtle warning from Theo to stay away. Or a hint: Don’t bother.

  I can sense in the way Theo leans back that he’s about to leave us. Matt must feel it, too, because he peppers Theo with questions and tries to convince him to play one round of the game with us. But I’m ready for Theo to move on, shine his spotlight somewhere else.

  As he walks away and rejoins Anastasia, he says something that makes both her and the other third year constantly at her side, Ariel Maddox, turn back our way. They’re looking at me. Theo’s face reads exuberant, like he could’ve said anything, mean or nice or nonchalant. Ariel’s expression is dry, nothing revealed. But Anastasia looks at me with wide, curious eyes. Like something Theo said must’ve intrigued her.

  Five

  Another day of Jasper passing me in the hallways without a second glance, always in a hurry and walking too quickly for anyone to catch up to him, but I don’t feel bad that I’ve made no progress in getting Jasper to notice me. Not yet. I have a new plan. Love can’t be rushed, and it can wait. Because while love is something you can hold against someone, laws broken and nondisclosure agreements tied to millions of dollars are more straightforward in terms of what can be used for entrapment. Therefore, I decide to turn my attention toward Theo. And the key to Theo is Anastasia Bowditch.

  Elena and her friends regard Anastasia as the school gossip—hair so big it’s full of secrets jokes abound. And while I never doubted that Anastasia doesn’t know all the skeletons in Theo’s closet, this reputation of hers makes it seem like it’d be a guarantee that if I’m close enough to her, she’ll tell me whatever I want to know about him.

  Anastasia strolls a few feet in front of me in the hallway with Ariel Maddox. If Theo is Anastasia’s number one, Ariel is her number two. Ariel hardly ever smiles, from what I’ve seen. She has a constant poker face. It doesn’t make her seem unfriendly, though. I think this is probably a quality Theo and Anastasia like about her—what makes her a good ally and fellow gatekeeper to all the secrets Anastasia knows, Theo’s transgressions included.

  To make myself valuable to people like them, I need to have something they want. And if they trade in information, then that’s what I’ll use to barter my way closer to them. Even if the information I give them isn’t good or even true.

  “Hey,” I say, approaching Anastasia and Ariel. They slow their pace and stop their conversation, but neither of them say hey back. They stare at me, waiting. Like they know I’m about to present something to them and are waiting to see if it’s worthy of their time.

  “I heard something weird, and I didn’t know if it was true…” Bored. They look so bored. “And it’s about Theo, so I thought—”

  “What did you hear?” Anastasia stops in her tracks. Ariel walks to the other side of me, so I’ll be forced to stop, too.

  Their wide eyes blink impatiently at me. Their lips purse into judgmental pouts. I’m almost tempted to tell them the truth. I know what Theo was involved in two summers ago. But it’s too early to play that card. It would make me seem suspicious to them—a possible threat.

  “I heard that Theo was on steroids.”

  They stare at me, their expressions unchanging until they both start to laugh. Even Ariel has broken her poised glare to chuckle in my face, at my expense.

  “Theo has muscles, but not steroid muscles,” Anastasia says.

  “I mean, people don’t just use steroids to build muscle mass,” I say. “They can be performance enhancers, too—”

  “If that were true, Theo wouldn’t be second-string on the water polo team.” Anastasia laughs so hard she has to wipe a tear from her left eye.

  This isn’t the reaction I was expecting.

  “But aren’t you concerned that this rumor is going around? Couldn’t it jeopardize Theo’s chances at getting into college or—”

  This, if you can believe it, makes them laugh even harder. It’s mortifying. I thought they would want to know who’d started this rumor. I thought they’d thank me for telling them before it got out of hand.

  Instead, Ariel shakes her head at me. “Get a better source,” she says.

  They’re still laughing as they walk away.

  Okay, fine, so that backfired. It was a lie and a faux rumor, and the two of them could smell it from a mile away.

  I round the corner and collide with someone, both of our books falling to the ground. This time, it’s the gods who are laughing, because the person I rammed into is Jasper.

  “What are you doing here?” I actually say out loud. Shoot.

  He scowls at me. But really, he has organic chemistry this period, and that’s in the other direction—except I look up and see the lab right in from of us. Oh no; it’s me who was going the wrong way, distracted and caught off guard by Anastasia and Ariel’s reaction. And now he’s seen me like this—flustered and clumsy.

  “Are you lost, Collins?” he says.

  “No.” It comes out too defensive, and Jasper leans away from me. “I was just—I thought—” Nope, no excuses are coming to mind. No recovering from this.

  “Hey, I get it,” he says, his voice friendlier than I’ve ever heard it. He reaches down to pick up our spilled books. “It’s been a long week.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Yes. This week—it just … keeps going.”

  He hands me my textbooks, and my face flashes hot. He smiles, and he seems warm and nice. Maybe I’ve caught him at a peaceful moment, right before O-Chem lab; the calm before the academic storm when he’ll turn intense and boring, as Theo says, or serious and rigid and impatient, the way I’m used to him.

  And as I walk away, I wonder if he’s watching me the way he did the girl in the
purple dress the first night at Rutherford. I don’t keep my cool; I glance back. He’s not there anymore.

  Six

  Anastasia’s in my post–Cold War Europe history class. For this hour, we’re allowed to sit anywhere. Usually, she sits next to Ruby Rivera, but today, I arrive at class before Ruby and take Ruby’s seat. Ruby only blinks at me when she walks in and notices. But Ruby is like everyone here and has more important things—like college applications and academic mediocrity—to worry about than where she sits in class.

  “Hey, Anastasia?” I tap her shoulder when there’s five minutes left in class and we’re let loose to start the assignment.

  Here’s what I’ve learned about Anastasia Bowditch since making her my main focus. She absolutely does not like to be called Ana and will not respond to it. She frequently gets reprimanded for wearing four rings instead of the Rutherford-approved two. She’s from Seattle, so she often sees Theo even when they aren’t at Rutherford, since his family’s home is across Lake Washington in Bellevue. She’s a vegetarian who likes steak seasoning on her steamed broccoli—observed on more than one occasion during dinner. She’s on the swim team and, like many other students here, has a private coach who trains her when she’s not at Rutherford. She used to go out with a third year named Zayn Patel but has been single since mid-July.

  The most important thing I learned?

  Anastasia turns toward me, her eyebrows raised, her expression a question mark. “Yes?” she finally says when a second has passed and I still haven’t spoken. Her tone is neither friendly nor annoyed.

  “Does anyone ever call you the Red Scare? You know, because of your hair.” The most important thing I learned about Anastasia Bowditch is that more than gossip, she loves a good compliment. It is, however, unfortunate that scare and hair happen to rhyme.

  Anastasia squints at me, and her lips part. I honestly don’t know what to expect from her at all now because really how would anyone respond to a person they don’t know giving them a nickname about the spread of communism based on their hair color? I thought it would translate, be something she’d find amusing and complimentary, and maybe I’d get points for using a term from this very class, but I was oh so wrong.

  “Um. No,” she says. She glances down at the luscious red curls cascading around her. Then she laughs.

  Curious. I can’t decide if this is the demeaning kind of laughter like when I told her the faux rumor about Theo or if this is genuine.

  “But people should call me that,” she says. She smiles. Thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness. “That’s funny. I’m going to tell Theo.”

  She turns back to her reading, but I understand the accolade that is telling Theo, because most everyone here would want his approval and to be given credit for saying something deemed clever by Anastasia.

  After class, I try again, going for that combination of flattering and funny that Anastasia seems to respond to.

  “Where did you get that ring?” I signal to her right hand, the coil of silver around her pointer finger. “That’s the kind of thing you wear when you want to spread your regime.”

  She sighs and stares at the piece of jewelry; she doesn’t laugh, like maybe she didn’t get the regime joke.

  “Thanks,” she says. “This guy Douglas gave it to me. I like the way it looks, but I don’t like that it reminds me of him.”

  “Oh no, why? What happened with him?”

  We walk down the hall, and she regales me with the tale of Douglas Begley, the son of her parents’ friends who used to try to get her to make out with him in the bathroom during dinner parties.

  “I only sort of liked him,” she explains, very nonchalantly.

  We pass through the B wing hall, lined with windows, giving way to a view of the courtyard, and Theo falls into step with us.

  “Mr. Guthrie is trying to kill us with boredom, I swear,” he says. He nods at me. “Hi, Collins.”

  “That’s right—Collins,” Anastasia says. “I could’ve sworn I knew your name, but then couldn’t remember it to save my life. Don’t you hate that?”

  “You’re so rude,” Theo says to her, laughing.

  I find myself nodding in agreement with her assessment of forgetfulness even though I also agree with Theo, the rude part being that she didn’t have to tell me I was forgettable to her.

  “What?” Anastasia says. “She’s new, and my brain can only retain so much at once. I couldn’t remember her name; so sue me.”

  “So sue me? I love when you start using catchphrases that were popular before you were born that you clearly picked up being trapped in Saint-Tropez with your mother for three weeks,” Theo says.

  “I do remember that Collins is from the Midwest and that she had to do her overview with Jasper.” Talking like I’m not even standing right here, until suddenly she turns to me. “How was that, by the way?”

  My face gets warm. Of course, Theo must’ve told her about how I was staring at Jasper in the cafeteria; how I’d called him mysterious.

  “It was … efficient.”

  “I’ll bet it was,” she says. Theo elbows her, and any chance he had of being discreet about it is ruined because Anastasia replies with a loud, “Ouch.”

  “That reminds me,” she says, wiggling away from Theo. “Are you going to the Labor Day dinner event?”

  “Is that not mandatory?” I say.

  “Oh yeah, it is for sure if you’re staying here for Labor Day. Sometimes people don’t stay. Especially first years or, like, if you’re new and homesick.”

  I take this as a bit of an insult, that she’s implying I can’t even handle a few weeks at Rutherford before hightailing it home. But as the two of them stare at me as we walk, waiting for my answer, I think that maybe this is a test. They’re waiting to see how strong I am.

  “I’ll be here,” I say.

  I don’t know if Anastasia’s heard me because suddenly she exclaims, “So don’t look now, but Teagan Quinn is desperately hitting on Matt Reiner, over there by his locker. You have to look—but don’t be obvious.”

  Matt Reiner is Elena’s friend, the mastermind behind their cafeteria dinner games. I glance as he leans against the wall, chatting with a girl wearing a long braid and a skirt rolled shorter than the Rutherford dress code allows.

  “She’s talking to him,” Theo says. “How scandalous.”

  “Oh, come on,” Anastasia says. “That was flirting! You saw it, right, Collins?”

  I absolutely did not see it—but I don’t want to stage a disagreement with Anastasia yet.

  “I thought Matt Reiner was dating Constance Gilbert.” As soon as the words escape my lips, I wonder if this is a secret, something only those at Elena’s table are privy to, and I’ve blown it.

  “Is that true?” Theo says. “Or did you get your information from the same person who allegedly told you I was taking steroids?”

  I don’t know what to say—whether it’s better to apologize or act naïve. Luckily, Anastasia is not about to be thrown off topic. “They are still dating,” she says, seemingly impressed that I, too, knew about Matt and Constance. “Teagan wants to break them up.”

  “That’s not very nice.” I’m so relieved to have good information and that Anastasia is making light of the whole steroids thing. So completely relieved.

  “Well, Teagan Quinn is the definition of not very nice.” Anastasia launches into a story about their first year at Rutherford when Teagan tried to steal Anastasia’s then boyfriend, Jacques Delon. “She even tried to steal Theo’s boyfriend once. At the class trip to Stanford—remember?”

  “It didn’t work. Surprise, surprise,” Theo says.

  “What was his name again?” Anastasia says.

  “Ross Vendermine,” Theo says. “He stopped coming here after his first year.”

  “That’s right. Didn’t his father’s company defraud the government or something?” Anastasia says.

  “I have no idea,” Theo says.

  Something
about the name Vendermine sounds familiar. Oh yes. “Did his parents own Vendermine Management?”

  “You know it?” Anastasia’s eyes widen, and she steps closer to me. I was right after all. Flattery initially got Anastasia’s attention, but having useless information and gossip is what’s hooking her. “Do you know what happened?”

  Sort of. “Yeah. Something about asbestos? It was damaging enough that the whole company went under.” I think.

  “How do you know about that?” Theo says. “Don’t tell me you dated Ross, too?”

  I laugh and shake my head. Sometimes my dad’s friends and business associates talked shop at the penthouse when I was there. They liked me to join in sometimes, even though I had nothing to add. They thought they were teaching me a thing or two about business and life. Mostly, they were bragging, and my dad always laughed about it after they left; how they liked talking about others’ failings as an excuse to tote their own successes.

  Anastasia’s mouth drops open. “That’s what it was—I remember now.” She rewrites the headline. “His parents’ company was, like, killing people with asbestos, basically.”

  “It was a really big deal.” One would assume.

  She’s nodding. All friendships have a currency, and this is hers. Rumors and gossip, anything even borderline shocking—or anything ordinary that can be spun into something outrageous. Extra points if you can give her that thrill of being the first to know something.

  “Hey, Collins, tell Theo my new nickname,” she says. She turns to Theo. “It’s totally funny.”

  “The Red Scare.”

  “Isn’t it perfect?” Anastasia says. “I’m like a regime.”

  “That’s the regime you want your nickname associated with? Really?” He laughs.

  She flips her hair so the strands hit him in the face. “Whatever. Eat my shorts.”

  “I don’t even want to know what that means or why your mother was saying that over the summer,” Theo says.

  Theo and Anastasia eventually go right where I go left, but before we part ways, I tell them I’ll see them later.