An Education in Ruin

by Alexis Bass

  I stand in front of the desk where he has his files neatly organized, though none of them are labeled. I open the one closest to me. It’s pages of research and development, lab tests and conceptual models of the Roba-Fix. The next file I open is full of legal memos, but it’s mostly about deposition times and dates, with only a case number referenced, no clues as to what the lawsuit is actually about. I glance at my dad’s legal pad, full of scribbles in this very specific inky-blue pen that he likes to use. Mostly, it’s numbers, calculations, and percentage markups, random and nonsensical because I don’t know the context. In the corner of the page, there are rows and rows of items, all crossed out and unreadable, except for the item that’s circled. It says:

  Sell all research data and close before trial.

  I turn back to the folder with the legal memos and flip through it again. This time, it jumps out at me—Jasper Mahoney. His name appears in a list with about twenty-five others. The list is labeled: Candidates for Deposition. The memo is dated in November—around the time Jasper stopped being able to sleep.

  My heart begins to race. I search again, frantic to find the name of the lawsuit or at least something that references it that would help me understand why Jasper is being deposed for it. But there’s nothing here, not with his hard copies anyway. The information I want is probably on his computer. His locked-in-a-briefcase, password-protected computer.

  I don’t know what I’ve uncovered, but it feels like something that draws me closer to understanding more of why Mrs. Mahoney is risking her reputation, her family, to be with my father. Her boys are her first priority. Maybe it’s not entirely about my dad’s money but his influence that she’s after.

  Thirty-three

  Theo, Jasper, Stewart, and I hang out by the pool in the afternoon, and later, after separating briefly to have dinner with our parents, we meet in the sky lounge. We sequester ourselves in a large booth in the corner and order fries. We find classic board games stacked on the shelves near the bar and spend the next few hours playing Sorry! and Chutes and Ladders. It’s late when we head to our rooms for the night, but when I get back to my suite, my father isn’t there.

  I send a text to Jasper: Are you asleep?

  Never. You?

  We decide to meet at the pool again, but this time when I get there, he isn’t in the water, and he didn’t bring swim caps and goggles. He’s in the resort-provided robe, lying on a lounge chair and staring out at the forest behind the glass wall. I recline in the lounge chair next to him in my matching robe.

  “This is really peaceful,” I say. I try not to yawn, but it’s no use.

  He smiles. He nods. I can see that he is still not at all at peace. Rosie said that keeping secrets prevents people from being close—something she was very right about. So I decide not to beat around the bush. Plus, my curiosity about this has been eating away at me all day.

  “I saw your name on the deposition list,” I say. “For the Robames Inc. lawsuit.”

  His head snaps in my direction, surprise morphing his expression.

  “How did you see that?”

  “I looked at one of my dad’s files.”

  He frowns. I should’ve known that snooping wouldn’t be something that Jasper Mahoney finds attractive.

  “It’s probably nothing, and they’re only bringing you in because you interned there,” I say.

  “Right,” he says. “Do you—do you know what’s going on with that lawsuit?”

  I shake my head. “Do you?”

  He doesn’t answer right away. “I don’t really know, either.”

  “Are you worried they’re going to find out about you and Rob and how you used to be involved? Are you worried that will expose the real reason she hired you as an intern?”

  “That’s not something they can really prove,” he says.

  He’s right. He was the ideal candidate—someone with good grades, who broke records in that year’s decathlon. Dartmouth accepted him early. Why wouldn’t those be good enough reasons for Robames Inc. to bring him in as an intern? I’ve already considered this, so it’s more than likely he has, too.

  “But if they ask you about it, you’ll have to tell them. Lying under oath is a felony.”

  “I know that.” He turns away from me and stares straight ahead, his jaw tensed. I can see the frustration rising within him. This deposition has really gotten to him. What’s he so nervous about? It has to be more than just revealing that he used to hook up off and on with the company’s founder.

  “What are you afraid they’re going to ask you?”

  He still doesn’t look at me. “Nothing,” he says. “They can ask me anything they want. Should we get in the water?”

  “I don’t care,” I say. Interesting how he changed the subject so suddenly. “Jasper?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You seem very on edge since I brought up the lawsuit.”

  He licks his lips, exhales. “It’s not that. It’s being here at Hylift. We can do whatever we want out here, and we don’t have any schedule to follow, and, I don’t know, isn’t it kind of irritating after a while?”

  “Ah, you miss Rutherford. A packed calendar, all that structure. It hasn’t even been that long since we left.”

  “It’s like a disease,” he says, “but it’s always like this during breaks—after the first week or so, I’m dying to get back to Rutherford.”

  “You have a condition. You hate relaxing. Your body flat-out rejects it. You like the regimen of Rutherford. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s been your life for four years.”

  “I guess. You’re dreading going back, aren’t you?”

  I nod. “I never thought I was bad at school until—”

  “You are not bad at school,” he interrupts.

  “Well, that’s nice of you to say. But honestly—and you have to tell me the truth—do you actually retain anything that you learn there?”

  “I think I retain most all of it.”

  I search for signs that he’s being sarcastic or at least exaggerating. He’s not. Of course.

  “I don’t remember a single thing I learned in number theory class,” I say.

  “That’s because number theory is boring.”

  “But I do remember that up until 1920, tug-of-war was an Olympic event. And I don’t even know where I read that, only that it’s true.”

  “Huh,” Jasper says. “Do you know who won the gold medal for tug-of-war that year?”

  “Great Britain.”

  “Whoa—okay, so you actually know the answer.” He laughs. “What else do you know?”

  “Jupiter is twice as big as all the other planets combined.”

  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard that, too. Did you know Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon?”

  Not a clue. “Everyone knows that, Jasper.”

  We crack up. He stops laughing before I do, his eyes slowly closing.

  “Marie Curie’s notebooks are still radioactive,” I say in a soft voice. I yawn and shut my eyes.

  “If you traveled at the speed of light, time would stop.” His voice is getting lower.

  “Dogs have around seventeen hundred taste buds.”

  I don’t know if he drifts off first or if I do, but when I wake up, it’s no longer dark in the room. Jasper is still in the lounge chair next to me, fast asleep. Outside, the sunrays glint over the trees. It’s so beautiful, I’m tempted to wake him. I watch the sun stretch past the forest, changing colors with the morning while Jasper sleeps. He only wakes up when a family with preteen children comes barreling in, excited to start their day with a morning swim.

  “That’s all it takes?” I say as we walk to our rooms. “Only a view of the snowy woods and night sky, muted blue lighting, a soft robe, and useless facts?”

  “I slept like a rock.” He yawns again, and I wonder if he’ll fall back asleep when he gets to his room.

  * * *

  Since the snowfall has finally subsided, that afternoon they
open the mountain for skiing. Theo, Jasper, Stewart, and I squeeze onto the aerial tram with the other excited skiers and snowboarders toting all our gear, ready to hit the slopes.

  Truth be told, none of us are very good at skiing. This makes us the perfect group. We stick to the beginners’ runs, occasionally trying out a harder track, where we fumble our way down the hill, laughing at our own clumsiness. We’re at least skilled enough not to get seriously injured. Either that or we’ve been lucky.

  Jasper’s pleasant mood and renewed energy make for a notable shift. I like watching him race Stewart. I like watching him laugh. I like that he can enjoy skiing without his usual intensity that stems from trying to be perfect at it or hoping to wear himself out.

  “Whatever you did, it worked,” Theo says to me at the base of the mountain, nodding at Jasper, who’s in a snowball fight with Stewart a few feet away. One of their snowballs bursts at our feet, and I pack the snow into a ball knowing full well this is going to rope Theo and me into their skirmish. We breach the woods, so we’re out of the way of everyone else, and weave through the trees as we hurl snowballs at each other. The snowballs shatter into a million snowflakes when they hit one of us.

  Jasper zeroes in on me, lobbing snow at me until I’m backed into a tree. He approaches, and I take cover, my hands over my head, waiting for the final blow. When he’s standing in front of me, he doesn’t douse me in snow. He peels away one of my arms, and then the other, and when I look up at him, he’s staring at me with this huge smile on his face. He looks deliriously happy. He seems like he’s going to say something, but a quick laugh comes out instead. He does this when he’s nervous, I remember. He locks eyes with me, and my heart beats faster and faster. This is unexpected. I think he wants to kiss me. I hold my breath, waiting to see what he’ll say next.

  But he doesn’t say anything. He smiles again. Stewart calls our names. We look in his direction at the same time, and he tells us the tram is coming soon. We rush over to join him and Theo, jogging clumsily in our ski boots. Jasper stands next to me on the tram, and I catch him watching me instead of the view as we move over the forest on our way back to the resort.

  Everything I’ve done hasn’t worked yet, I think. But almost.

  Thirty-four

  “You don’t have to kiss someone to get them to fall in love with you; you make them fall in love with you so that you get to kiss them.” That’s what Rosie said. Back when it was still spring and I didn’t know about Jasper and Theo, or Mrs. Mahoney and my father. Or any of the other secrets. But now, as all the other things she’s exposed swirl around in my mind, I question if it’s that simple. If I’m allowed to want a kiss from Jasper, if I’m allowed to take one, if I’m obligated to.

  A kiss could be confirmation that he’s closer to loving me—closer to trusting me. It could be proof that I can slither my way into someone’s heart—that I’m strong and smart and determined enough to pull it off. It could be … nice. I think of the way he looked at me during the snowball fight and know that, yes, kissing him wouldn’t’ve been all that bad.

  Plus, I bet his mother would hate it.

  That night, since we’re weary from the day of skiing, we decide to watch a movie instead of hanging out at the sky lounge. We meet in Theo and Jasper’s room—a suite with a wall entirely of windows and a bedroom for each of them. We deliberate about what movie we want to watch and decide on a horror film. After a quick trip to get popcorn, soda, and licorice from the store in the lobby, we settle in and start the movie. I’m on the end of the couch, next to Jasper, with Stewart on the other end, and Theo lounging in the armchair next to Stewart.

  I’m more nervous than usual to be sitting so close to Jasper in the dark. He leans toward me, resting on one of the overstuffed throw pillows. He smells like the hotel soap—like oranges and flowers. His curls are still slightly damp from his post-ski shower. His hands twist around the corner of the pillows whenever there’s a tense scene. Whenever something startling happens on the screen, Theo reaches over to grab Stewart’s shoulder. Sometimes it scares him so much that he flings his popcorn across the room. One thing that’s been apparent these past few days is that Theo downright enjoys Stewart’s company. He doesn’t mind spending every waking moment with Jasper either, even though he’d indicated otherwise when Anastasia was interested in Stewart. I’m curious to see what happens when Anastasia arrives and if Theo will suddenly care about sharing his time with her.

  “Why do you keep falling for this?” Theo laughs after Stewart is so surprised during one scene that he spills soda down the front of his shirt.

  The jumpy parts hardly get to me because I can’t stop glancing at Jasper—at his hands around that pillow. I remember the day he took hold of me at the helicopter landing, his hands holding my arms before he took my hands in his. I can still recall what it felt like, his hands on me, and can’t stop imagining what it would be like to reach out and hold his hand now, feel his palm squeeze into mine—or his arm around me, his hand cupping my shoulder. Or brushing past my cheek, holding my face.

  Pull yourself together. This is what Theo would say if he knew what I was thinking.

  I’m glad the movie is nerve-racking so I have an excuse for seeming uneasy. I start to feel paranoid about sweating, and I can’t stop jiggling my foot. But I still want to kiss him, and more than that, I want him to want to kiss me. Toward the end of the movie, I shift so that instead of leaning on the armrest, I’m resting on his pillow. He notices me right away and adjusts so that there’s room for my arm on the pillow—though not leaving so much room that our arms aren’t touching. I take so many nervous sips from my soda that by the end of the movie I’m dying to use the bathroom.

  After I’m done, I check myself out in the mirror. My face is a little sunburned, not too much, but there is a faint outline of my goggles, if you really look. I shake out my hair, trying to give it more volume. I sniff my armpits to make sure all that sweating didn’t overwork my deodorant. I turn sideways to examine my profile, the view that Jasper had of me during the movie. If I were just another student at Rutherford, Jasper probably wouldn’t’ve looked twice at me. He’s spent the past two years on and off with Rob James, after all. If not for all the regret, maybe it would still be going on between them. And if not for my agenda, he wouldn’t be sitting on a couch with me in the dark watching a movie, giving me almost-touches on the tram rides, falling asleep next to me at the pool. Right now, that doesn’t make me feel strong or smart. This is the part of deception that’s disheartening—the lines between manipulation and truth get blurred.

  The bathroom rests in an abrupt hallway between the two bedrooms. When I come out, I can hear Theo and Stewart laughing in the living room. The light to Jasper’s room is on, and his door is open. I step closer so I can see inside. He’s folding a few stray shirts, putting them in the dresser. Other than that, his room is immaculate—though I don’t give him too much credit for this since I’m sure housekeeping is mostly responsible.

  I knock on the open door to alert him I’m here.

  “Hey,” he says. He turns around and leans against the desk as he refolds the blue shirt he was putting away. “This is where I come to not sleep.”

  I smile and take a few steps into the room.

  “Thinking of going back to the pool?” There’s a strain in my voice—my nerves running rampant being in here alone with him.

  “Maybe.” He looks away, fidgets with the shirt in his hands. This almost makes me feel better, that he’s starting to show signs he’s nervous, too.

  “Where else can you get that view and that blue light?” I get an idea. “Can I try something?” I step toward him, and he straightens very quickly, startled by my sudden proximity. I take the shirt from his hands. I turn off the overhead lights but leave on the lamp at his desk and drape his blue shirt over the shade. Then I move to the windows, walking back the curtain to expose a view of the star-filled sky, the tops of the forest trees.

  “Now al
l you need is a robe.”

  He looks around the room at the new atmosphere I’ve created, and I watch his smile get larger and larger. When his eyes meet mine, it seems to break him from his daze. He moves past me toward the closet and yanks not one robe but two from their hangers. The second one he tosses to me. He slips his on and goes to the other side of the bed. My hands tremble as I untie the tight bow the hotel tied to hold the belt around the robe. I slide the robe over my shoulders and secure it in front, then join him on the bed. From where I’m lying, I can see a stack of books on his desk next to his laptop.

  “You brought Rutherford with you,” I say. “How many books from the assigned reading list have you read since we’ve been out?”

  “Only two.”

  “That’s respectable.”

  “Glad to have your approval.” He laughs lightly. His voice is getting lower, the way it did when we fell asleep by the pool. My eyelids start to grow heavy. I’d thought the robe would be too hot over my clothes, but it’s very cozy.

  “Tell me the most boring thing you learned in those books. That’s sure to put us both to sleep.”

  “There was this study done once about how likely people were to lie given certain situations, like if they saw a little kid steal a piece of candy from the store, would they say anything; or if they witnessed their best friend blatantly lying to someone, would they call them out in front of the person they were lying to.”