by Alexis Bass
“It’s not that I didn’t love you, Collins.” She studies me, picking up on my distress. “I would’ve made a horrible mother. Michelle was so good at it. I knew I was leaving you with the best possible people. People better than I was.”
“You’re right,” I say. My heart is pounding in my ears. “They’re much better than you.”
“Your father loves you far more than he ever loved me,” she says. “But he feels indebted to me. He always will. I gave him his only daughter.” She looks me over again, searching for how I’m going to react to this. She wanted me to provide the leverage to hold over Mrs. Mahoney, but I was always the leverage she used against my dad. “Pulling the proposal is something he would’ve done for me in a heartbeat, if not for Marylyn and her money problems. Your father is an intelligent man, but he’s oblivious when he’s in love. He allows it to take all of his strength, and he loses himself in it, lets it cloud his judgment.” She pulls her coat closed against a sudden breeze. “I hope he didn’t pass that trait down to you.”
“He tries to take care of the people he loves. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
“I wish you would open your eyes,” she says. She leans toward me, resting her elbows on the table. “It’s obvious that Jasper is in love with you. You did it. You can get Marylyn away from your father for good and that’s what you must focus on now. He still needs you to save him.”
“I don’t believe you. I’ve got no reason to believe you.”
“Why would I lie to you about this when I’ve already got what I want?” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“While you and Mimi were visiting your dorm, I told Jake about Mimi’s investment in Spectacle Barkley. He didn’t agree to pull the proposal, but he did agree to stop pushing so hard for it. He’s stepping back for now; he even canceled the meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow with Rob and her investors to go over it one more time. He’s going to let her make her own childish mistake. And my sources tell me Rob James never seriously considered Jake’s proposal anyway. So there you go. I’m getting what I want whether or not he lets Marylyn Mahoney dictate his every move. You can take Spectacle Barkley and the proposal and my agenda out of the equation. I don’t care anymore if he lets Marylyn walk all over him. But the fact still remains that she is rotten and greedy and bad for your dad. It’s up to you now, if you still want to save him.”
“He’s happy with her. He doesn’t need saving.”
“Maybe he’s happy. But how long will it last when she’s a colossal drain on his income? It’s only going to get worse when the Mahoneys take this big hit, losing their Robames investment.” She swirls her wine before taking a sip. “Not only that, Marylyn’s also taking information he’s told her in confidence and selling it as stock tips. It’s called insider trading, and it’s extremely illegal. Not something your dad would want to be caught up in. It could ruin him if she’s ever caught, even if he was unwittingly involved. Like I’ve said before, I’ve tried to warn him about her. He won’t listen to me and he won’t listen to you.”
“But how do you know that Marylyn is doing that? Where’s your proof?” When she was telling me about Theo’s secret, she had the camp photo and a copy of the NDA. And for these accusations against Mrs. Mahoney, she’s got nothing? There’s a reason my dad didn’t believe her—he knows he shouldn’t; she had nothing to show him as evidence, and she had something she wanted from him. She’s not credible. She never has been.
“You’ll have to trust me on this one.” She finishes her glass of wine and lifts her purse off the back of her chair and straps it to her shoulder.
“How am I supposed to believe you after everything you’ve lied about?”
“On the contrary.” She stands. She puts her hand under my chin, forcing me to meet her eyes. “I’m the only one who’s ever told you the truth.”
She leans down and kisses my forehead, then walks into the hotel, leaving me alone in the hazy rain.
Forty-nine
Mimi and I stay up late brainstorming about what she might study and the different schools where she could enroll, and the next day, Rutherford’s open house kicks off with a string of events. Breakfast in the square followed by a track-and-field preview and sports scrimmages.
My race finishes right in time for me to watch the end of Jasper’s lacrosse game. But before it’s over, he’s ejected for too many fouls, which isn’t like him at all. He storms off the field. I follow him.
He walks to the edge of the woods and throws his stick. He rips off his equipment and sits on the ground, his elbows resting against his knees. His hair is sweaty and clings to his forehead.
I pick up his stick from where it’s landed a few feet away. I take a seat next to him. He smells like sweat and freshly cut grass.
“It’s getting to you, isn’t it?” I say. Rob James is here in Cashmere and even though we haven’t seen her, the air is rich with the question of what we should be doing about it, if we should bother, if we’re desperate enough.
He nods.
Mimi was so determined and happy last night, excited for the future in a way that everyone deserves to be excited about big life changes. I don’t want her to lose all her money. I don’t want her to have any more setbacks.
But I don’t like the rigidness of Jasper’s back, the redness in his eyes from lack of sleep, the sharp inhale that occurs whenever he thinks about it too hard; the way he was on edge today while playing lacrosse.
“I want to meet her. If she agrees to it,” he says. He doesn’t look at me. “I’m going to beg her to authorize the proposal, save my family’s investment. Why not, right? I’ll leave my pride at the door and say please until I’m blue in the face.” He runs a grass-stained hand through his damp hair. “It’s going to be different this time, when I talk to her.”
He absentmindedly picks at the grass, pressing it in between his fingers and then yanking on it.
“Why will it be different?” I say, not a clue as to what his answer will be, but uneasy about it all the same.
“She’s not going to be able to blackmail me anymore.”
“Jasper, no—not an option.” I pull on his jersey to get him to look at me and finally he does.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve thought about this, okay? I cheated. I messed up. So if she won’t authorize the proposal, then I’ll give a damning testimony and she’ll lose the company all the same. I’m going to tell her she can release the recording, tell whoever she wants that I cheated. She can’t use it to control me anymore.”
“But what about Dartmouth, what about—”
“I have to, Collins, don’t you get it?” He untangles my hand from his jersey and takes it in his. “I don’t want to live with this anymore. Every day I wonder how you could possibly care about me when you know what I’m getting away with and that I’m still lying about it.”
“There’s more to you than this one stupid mistake.”
“Stupid mistake is putting it nicely. But I’ve thought about this.”
“Have you really? Because if you give an unfavorable testimony at the trial, you do damage to Robames. That’s not good for your family’s investment either.”
“I know.” He concentrates on my hand, brushing his thumb over my knuckles.
He’s trying to do the right thing. But the result is also him giving up. Letting the chips fall where they may, annihilating Rob and losing his family’s money in the process.
I squeeze his hand until he looks at me.
“Theo will never let you do this.”
“That’s why you can’t tell him.”
Best case scenario, Rob James agrees to authorize the proposal, fearful of Jasper’s testimony now that he’s no longer cooperating with her blackmail. She never releases the recording of him cheating and Robames is saved thanks to Rob giving her blessing to ditch the impossible Roba-Fix and take her company in a new direction as a research firm per my father’s proposal.
&nbs
p; Worst case scenario, Rob James makes it public that Jasper cheated in the decathlon, Jasper gives a damaging testimony putting Robames out of business, Rob loses her company, everyone loses their investments, and Jasper loses his scholarship.
The potential outcomes are extreme. It’s very risky. Theo would never agree to it.
The lawsuit, whether Jasper gives the honest, disparaging testimony or not, will be the kiss of death to Rob and, by extension, Robames. If the Roba-Fix is impossible and she’s been hiding this from her investors and clients, then why wouldn’t she want to avoid a lawsuit at all costs? If the choice is between giving up her dream or going down in flames, why is she choosing the latter? Why doesn’t she think this is worth fighting for? Why does she think she’ll get away with it?
“You should meet with her,” I say. “But it has to be on your terms.”
What I really mean is, it has to be on my terms.
One Month Later
“We’ll see you later tonight,” Theo says, waving to us.
I nod. My throat constricts. I want to cry. I want Jasper to say something or at least make eye contact with me. But he continues down the path with Theo and Stewart and doesn’t look back.
“Something weird is going on,” Anastasia says. “We’re going to find out what it is.”
MARCH
Fifty
On Saturday night the auditorium is filled for the production of Newsies. This is the most popular event at the open house, aside from the speech Rob James gave the previous evening. The Rutherford campus is practically deserted.
This is what we were counting on.
We get to the common room around 7:45 p.m., giving us just enough time before Rob arrives to meet Jasper.
“How does this angle look?” Theo stands on a chair, positioning a small camera on top of a bookshelf in the corner of the room.
“Turn it on,” Stewart says. “Let me make sure it connects.” He sets up his laptop on the large round table.
Setting up a meeting between Rob James and Jasper on my terms involved telling Theo, because as the eyes and ears of this school, he knew the best place for them to meet—the upperclassmen’s common room, somewhere both public and private—and he knew the best time for them to do it—during the main event of the open house, when the rest of Rutherford’s population would be occupied. We included Stewart because we needed him to get us cameras from the video production and media development department at Rutherford, where he has access as vice president of the Modern Media Club.
Theo and Stewart don’t know the whole truth, though. They don’t know that Jasper isn’t going to fight her on the blackmail.
As far as Stewart and Theo are concerned, Rob and Jasper are meeting for one last try at convincing her to authorize the proposal. The cameras are there to catch her admitting that the Roba-Fix is a lie or confessing romantic involvement with Jasper—a final attempt to have something on her that she doesn’t want the public to know about. One last shot at leverage and a chance to discredit Jasper as a witness.
And Jasper wants all these things too; so do I. But I also want to know what Rob will confess to Jasper when she’s backed against the wall after Jasper tells her that he doesn’t care if she exposes that he cheated in the decathlon; what she’ll reveal about why she won’t give up even though her invention is impossible.
“I’m having some trouble with the program,” Stewart says. Theo climbs off the chair, sets down the cameras, and pushes Stewart aside so he can mess with the software. “I’m the one in the Modern Media Club,” Stewart says as Theo slaps his hand away when he reaches for the keyboard.
Jasper is across the room pacing. His shoes make shuffling sounds against the wood floors. It really is eerily quiet at Rutherford right now; every small noise is magnified.
We all hear it at the same time. The loud clicking of heels coming from the hallway. Jasper stops; Stewart and Theo straighten. The footsteps get louder, closer, coming right for us.
“Roberta … she likes to be early.”
“Nicht gut.”
Theo taps furiously against the laptop keyboard, the cameras still not connecting.
Soon the footsteps reach the door to the common room.
“It’s only Anastasia,” Theo says as she walks into the room.
We all sigh loudly in relief. Anastasia frowns.
“Nice to see you all, too,” she says. She puts her hands on her hips. “Thought you could all sneak off during ‘The World Will Know’ and I wouldn’t notice?”
“We’re doing a project—” Jasper starts.
Stewart nods. “For school.” An unnecessary addition to Jasper’s lie.
Theo and I know better than to attempt to explain this scene to Anastasia. We need to get her out of there before Rob arrives.
“Stewart, can you handle the cameras?” Theo says as we steer Anastasia toward the door.
“Cameras?” She whips around and walks toward Stewart and the computer.
“It’s for the Modern Media Club, Anastasia,” Theo says, his voice tight with impatience. “Can we go now?”
“But why are you involved?” she says to Theo. “You hate the Modern Media Club.”
Stewart shakes his head as he continues to mess with the software. “What’d we ever do to you?” he mutters.
“I don’t see any cameras,” Anastasia says, growing more suspicious by the second.
“We’ll tell you about it while we walk back to the auditorium,” I say.
The plan was that Theo, Stewart, and I would monitor Jasper and Rob on Stewart’s laptop from the storage closet around the corner where we make the drops for the game, in case he needed rescuing, or if she says something to press his buttons and we need to intervene. But if Theo and I must return to the auditorium and watch the final act of Newsies to keep Anastasia away, then that’s exactly what we’ll do.
“Is that a camera?” She points to the small camera hiding in the corner of the pool table.
“Damn it, Anastasia, we’re going to miss the play,” Theo says.
Her eyes scan the room, on the hunt for more.
“There—that’s one too.” She points to the camera nestled next to a stack of board games. “It’s like this room is under surveillance. So who are we spying on?”
We. In typical Anastasia fashion, she’s quick to insert herself into this situation.
“A school project. I’ll explain it all on our way to—” Theo’s mouth snaps shut. Anastasia’s eyes get wide. Jasper sucks in a breath. Stewart takes his hands back, away from the keyboard. A chill travels down my spine.
Oh no.
Rob James is standing in the doorway. She’s not dressed for the theater like we are, but she still looks nice. She’s in a casual white tank top and baggy white linen pants. She has large gold cuffs on each wrist and wears tall golden pumps. She’s got her hair pulled back, and her face is completely made up.
She takes her time walking into the room and makes eye contact with each of us as she passes. When she reaches Stewart, she leans forward, examining the screen.
“You’re absolutely right,” she says. “Surveillance indeed.”
“You of all people can appreciate this,” Jasper says. His expression has darkened.
Rob works on the laptop and, by the way Stewart’s mouth turns down, I know she must be disabling the cameras. She shuts the laptop and smiles at us.
A smile like this, tight but genuine, is not what I was expecting at all from her. She’s still the most powerful person here and she knows it. Leisurely, she crosses the room and takes a seat in a large leather chair.
“I guess … I guess we’ll leave you and Jasper to it, then,” Stewart says with an unsteady voice.
But without the cameras, there’ll be nothing to record her admitting the Roba-Fix is a pipe dream or catch a confession about their past that might get Jasper out of testifying. And Jasper will be laying it all on the line in hopes she’ll be more afraid of his testimony than she is a
bout altering Robames, according to the proposal, without any leverage or backup.
“No need to leave,” Rob says. “Whatever Jasper has to say to me, he can say in front of all of you. Clearly.”
She glances around the room, assessing the upper hand she’s earned simply by being early.
“Please sit.” She gestures to the couch in front of her and the two chairs angled towards her. “This concerns everyone, right? Since you all just happened to be here setting up surveillance before the private meeting I had scheduled with Jasper.”
We do as she says. Jasper and I end up in chairs on opposite sides of the coffee table, with Stewart, Theo, and Anastasia on the couch.
Her eyes skip around the room, stopping the most on Jasper. What does she see when she takes him in? Someone she used to care about? Someone she still wants? Or does she simply see a threat?
“Phones off,” she says. She takes her own phone out of her pocket and turns it off. She sets it on the coffee table and waits as we do the same. She watches as each of us power down our phones, holding up the screens so she can watch them go dark. Chapter titles from her book flash through my mind. Controlling the Narrative. Managing Outsider Influence. Commanding Attention.
“I suppose this is about Jacob Pruitt’s proposal,” she says when all the phones are off and in the center of the coffee table, and Jasper finally looks at her. At the mention of my father’s name, her gaze flickers over to me. She takes a deep breath and looks to the ceiling. “You know, this room hasn’t changed. Not a bit. When I went to school here, we sat in this very spot. So many memories. Talking for hours. Lots of fun games.” Her eyes lock on to Jasper’s. “So you tell me, what game are we here to play?”
Fifty-one
“It’s not a game to us,” Jasper says. “It’s our families’ money. Our future.”
“It’s sort of cute,” she says. “All you privileged teenagers afraid of no longer being spoiled. What are you so scared of?” She pouts, mocking us as she continues. “One less yacht in the harbor. Platinum American Express cards instead of Black. Maybe you’ll have to skip St. Barths for a year or two.”