by RJ Infantino
She had a great shock of brown hair, and I liked how she tied it up in a messy bun when she was thinking. She thought a lot. She was beautiful but not in the obvious kind of way. And she didn’t have a boyfriend. Not yet.
I knew so much that added up to nothing at all. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a creeper or anything. We talked, more than that once, but less than a lot. The other third years liked her for obvious reasons, and they weren’t particularly interested in sharing their friend with a fourth year. So three months into the school year, and Taylor was still the new girl to me. She was like a secret whispered beneath the constant roar of the school. But that wouldn’t last. Secrets never stay hidden for long at Ashwood.
I looked over at Dante and realized that he was trying to ask me a question. My ears were still ringing, long after the bells had stopped. A coy smile played across his mouth, and his voice echoed the bell chimes.
“What did you think of that extra credit?”
I laughed. We were no better than anyone on the ground. There was no escaping school apparently, even during breaks. But I couldn’t blame Dante. It really was a bizarre question. I’d stared at it so long that I could recite it precisely from memory.
“Imagine that you became president in the wake of a nuclear attack. Which of your classmates would you choose to fill out each position on your cabinet? Explain your choices. Points will be awarded for keen analysis and creativity.”
Dante’s eyes lit up. He loved this kind of stuff. “Wouldn’t that be awesome? Washington, DC, gets wiped out. The White House. The Capitol. All the politicians. Everything. Morbid, sure, but here’s the fun part. I’m in charge. We are. Not everybody, of course, but the good ones. And we do it right. Forget the bullshit and the petty politics. We think, and we know, and we act, and we just do it.”
I watched two first-year girls trying to edge each other out from talking to a third-year guy. It was a junior varsity display of the game that played out on campus all day, every day.
“If you don’t think there are petty politics in high school, then you haven’t been paying very close attention.”
“Maybe that’s why we’d be good at it.”
I shrugged.
There was a crowd starting to gather outside the Main Building doors, and I wondered why they weren’t going inside. Barnwell came marching around the corner of the building from his station where he’d been waiting to count the kids off onto the shuttles. The top of his head didn’t look very pleased, and he fought his way through the crowd.
“Excuse me. Coming through. Excuse me.”
When he got to the doors, it was pretty clear what the problem was. The doors seemed to be stuck. Not locked though—a key could have taken care of that. No, this was a prank. Simple, effective, and pointless unless you needed a good laugh. And I had a pretty good idea who’d done it. Sometimes my friends were dumber than I was.
Dante looked down on it all with a vague disdain. “When are you going to get it, man? We’re great men, meant for great things. I know you’d rather read your books and watch and analyze and sit up here on the sidelines, but that’s not you. Not really. You’ve got something rare, and once you accept that, then maybe you’ll stop screwing around.”
“I’m not like you, Dante.”
“You’re right. You’re almost better, and that’s what pisses me off.”
That was odd. He almost sounded like he meant it. “So what’s my job in Dante-topia?”
“You’re my secretary of state.” Dante saw the look on my face. “What’s wrong with that?” he asked, surprised, but laughing. He seemed pretty pleased with himself for getting me to play his little game.
“It’s all the hard work with none of the perks. Think of famous secretaries of state. They either screwed up or went to war. In no other job would mistakes and death be considered separate criteria. And I’m not a big fan of the travel.”
“The travel’s the best part!”
“Then you should be secretary of state. Besides you can’t be president anyway, at least not here.”
“What do you mean?” His voice was tight, as if I’d just threatened him.
“Because you weren’t born in America. You’re not a natural-born citizen.” He was lucky that wasn’t a question on the history exam we’d just taken.
“Wait a minute.” Dante straightened up. “For real. I can’t ever be president?”
“I’m pretty sure.” I couldn’t understand why Dante looked so distraught. “You can be a governor, congressman, or secretary of state. You just can’t be president.”
Dante got quiet while I watched a sloppy game of rough two-hand touch play out on the lawn below. It was a few minutes before he muttered, “God, my parents even managed to screw that up.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard Dante complain about his parents. Most Ashwood students checked their families at the door, but Dante made sure everyone knew his story. As the only son of an Italian father and an Egyptian mother, he grew up skipping back and forth across the Mediterranean before settling in Texas when his father found the black gold. That background was part of his carefully crafted mystique.
Dante knew the world, and more importantly, he knew himself. In the midst of so many kids trying to figure out those answers for themselves, that combination proved incredibly seductive. Dante had somehow skipped over the awkwardness that infected the rest of us. At times, he didn’t even seem real, like he was sculpted out of some artist’s vision, so I was a little less than sympathetic. Dante’s parents had put the world at his fingertips. Wealth, access, aggravatingly good looks. I didn’t even get my own room until my hurricane of older brothers left for school.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. Even if you were born in Washington, DC, you’d have a better chance of growing up to be a serial killer than the president.”
“Maybe, but it’s just having that possibility. It’s like climbing a mountain, and halfway up, somebody chops the top off. Do you keep climbing? The higher you go, the better the view, sure, but you still know it’s not the best.”
I didn’t have any good answer for that, so I let Dante sulk while I got a taste of the silence I was searching for when I’d climbed up there in the first place.
A pair of second-year girls spotted us from the ground and started to wave. I brought my finger to my lips and, with a wink, urged them to keep quiet. They nodded and giggled and went on pretending like they were waving at a bird. I closed my eyes and let the sun wash over my face.
“What did you put?” Dante asked. He’d been so quiet, I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“The extra credit? I said I’d leave everything to you, my vice president, and then go to the Library of Congress to check out a book.”
What I told Dante was only partially true, but it worked in getting him to smile.
He shook his head. “Classic Chase, always causing trouble.”
Which reminded me . . . I hopped back off the ledge and went looking for my jacket. More specifically, my left jacket pocket. I rooted my hand around inside and pulled out a perfectly folded paper square. I knew Dante was watching, but I was too curious to wait, so I unraveled the note in three quick moves. I recognized the scrawling handwriting immediately.
1:30. Tonight.
I glanced at the floor hatch that led down to the attic. Dante was saying something. I was too excited to fully listen, but it sounded something like, “I hope you’re not that stupid.
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