“Mr. McDonald,” I say, “meet Brandt Rush.”
Dad doesn’t say anything. He just stares at Brandt with a glare that could cut diamonds. Brandt looks back at him, then saunters forward a half step and picks up the picture of Moira from on top of the desk, holding it up by two fingers and keeping it at arm’s length.
“I’ve seen better pictures of her,” he says, and flicks his eyes up at Dad. “How’s your daughter doing, anyway, Mr. McDonald?”
Dad’s jaw tightens, and when he speaks, his voice is low and steady. “You want to put that down right now, my friend. Or you’re gonna lose that hand.”
“Hey, no harm, no foul.” Brandt drops the picture onto the desk, where it hits the surface with a clatter. “I’m just a concerned citizen. Wish her well, that’s all.”
“Moira finished her senior year at Andover,” Dad says, through clenched teeth. “She’s fine. Graduated with honors.”
“Yeah?” Brandt gives a big, theatrical yawn. “That’s too bad. Pretty mediocre school compared to Connaughton. Which means she probably fit right in, huh?”
“That’s it.” Dad turns to Uncle Roy. “Louie, haul this worthless piece of garbage out of my sight. And see that he falls down the stairs a few times on the way.”
Roy gestures. “Come on, kid.”
“I’m worth half a billion dollars,” Brandt says, not budging. He gives Dad a half-lidded smirk. “If anything happens to me, I promise you, you’re a dead man.”
“I’m all a-tremble,” Dad says, and nods to Roy. “You heard me—get him out.”
Uncle Roy reaches for Brandt’s elbow, and Brandt yanks it away. Roy hauls back like he’s about to swing at him, and that’s when I step forward to play my part.
“Mr. McDonald,” I say, “just hold on. Brandt only wants to place a bet.”
“A bet?” Dad says. “I run an online operation, you moron—and you bring him here to the office?”
“He wants to do it in person.” I shrug. “He’s old school that way, right, Brandt?”
Brandt doesn’t say anything, just stands there with his hands in his pockets. For a second the only sound is the noise from the main workspace outside Dad’s office.
Finally Dad sits down behind his desk and looks at Brandt without a trace of expression. I can tell that he’s sober, which means he’s handling this perfectly. I feel an odd thrill of admiration for him, even respect, an unexpected reminder of what he’s actually capable of when he’s bringing his A-game. His eyes remain on Brandt, and they are the cold, calculating eyes of a man with an operation to protect.
“How big a bet?” he says.
“Two grand,” I say. “He just wants to—”
“I’m not talking to you.” Dad is still staring at Brandt. “You know what my daughter said to me after you posted those pictures of her on Facebook, you degenerate piece of garbage? She said she wished she had never been born. That’s a direct quote. You know what that kind of humiliation feels like?”
“Yeah, well.” Brandt grins. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it? By the way . . .” He leans in, just a little, and lowers his voice slightly. “I’ve still got some copies of those pictures if you want ’em. Suitable for framing.”
Dad’s fingers are gripping the desk so tightly that I can see his knuckles turning white. I can also see the veins in his head now. He’s selling this so well that it’s a little scary.
“Two grand, Mr. M.,” I say. “Cash. It’ll be quick. Then we’ll be out of here.”
Dad closes his eyes and opens them again. His pupils pop to Uncle Roy. “Get him a laptop.”
“I thought you said—”
“Just do it.” Dad looks back at Brandt, his voice tight. “I’ll take your money, kid. Every penny. And the sooner I do it, the sooner I can scour your stench from my office.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re out of there as promised, Brandt following me into the back seat of the Caddy with an extra two thousand dollars in his pocket.
“Well, what do you think?” I say, just as Uncle Roy gets behind the wheel. “Smooth, right?”
Brandt doesn’t say anything as Uncle Roy drives us back to Connaughton. He fidgets with his phone, then sits back and stares out the window. I try to imagine what he’s thinking. He just won two grand in three hands of online poker, while “my associate”—really just Lupo Reilly in the main office—texted him how to bet. The system itself wasn’t difficult to work out, and since Dad never seemed to notice Brandt checking his iPhone, Brandt must have assumed he got away with it. Which is exactly how we want to leave it.
Uncle Roy drops us off in front of the statue of Lancelot Connaughton. For a second we both just stand there, shivering. Then Brandt looks at me.
“When can we go back?” he asks.
I take my time before answering, making sure I get exactly the right expression on my face. “We should probably hang back a bit. If we come back too soon, it’ll be obvious that—”
“Next Friday. I want to do another test run. Ten thousand this time.”
I shake my head. No doubt Uncle Roy has the cash to pay out a ten-thousand-dollar win, but I’m not sure he can get his hands on it that quickly. “You saw it work,” I say. “If we go back too many times—”
“One more test run,” Brandt says. “If it works, I’ll front you the full two mill for the big score. I want to bring him down hard.” He glares at me. “You want to get this guy, right, Shea? For slapping your mom around?”
“Yeah, of course, but—”
“Then make it happen.”
And he leaves me standing there.
Twenty-Three
THE NEXT DAY IS THE HOMECOMING LACROSSE MATCH. Tuesday’s freak snowstorm is a distant memory, and the manicured field is green and dry. Even though I don’t understand the game, I’m sitting in the stands with a fresh cup of coffee, watching Connaughton trounce the hopeless schmoes from St. Albans, who—even to my uneducated eye—seem to have forgotten which end of the stick to hold on to. The score is already 3–0. Around me the stands are full of parents and alumni dressed in the school colors, drinking their lattes and cheering every play. Six rows down, Brandt and Andrea are side by side, sharing a blanket. I’m not sure what canoodling is, but I’d be willing to bet they’re doing it.
“Can I sit here?”
I look up and see Gatsby standing in front of me. She looks tired, her face pale in the morning light, her hands plunged deep in the pockets of her coat.
“Oh,” I say. “Hey.”
“Listen,” she says, “about last night . . .”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
She just stands there. I’m waiting for more, some kind of explanation, but there isn’t anything else. “It’s cool.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you all right? I tried to call . . .”
“I’m fine,” she says.
“Was it some kind of Sigils thing?” I ask. “Like, another test or something? Because, I mean, if that’s what it was . . .”
“No,” she says. “It wasn’t anything like that.”
“Oh. Okay.”
There’s a silence between us that seems to last forever. It’s like there’s this soundproof bubble around us, and the rest of the world is sealed away somewhere on the other side of it, going about its business, remote and unreal. Sometimes that kind of privacy can feel good—intimate, special. Not this time.
“I came by your room,” I say. “I saw the light on.”
“Will.” Gatsby lowers her eyes. “That whole thing. It was a mistake.”
“Which part?”
“When you invited me to the dance . . .” She looks back up at me. “I shouldn’t have said yes.”
“Why not? Is it something I did?”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t do anything.” Somewhere down on the field something happens and the crowd cheers, and we just keep looking at each other.
“Listen,” she says, “I’ll see you around,
“Sure,” I say, and my voice sounds strange to me, like it’s being piped in from some completely different person.
And I watch her go.
I look down at Brandt and Andrea, snuggling together under the blanket. I couldn’t care less what they’re doing, but I find myself wondering if Brandt’s said anything to her about our trip down to Lowell last night. Then, right on cue, Andrea turns around, looks up at me, and wrinkles her nose.
On the field, it’s halftime, and I see Dr. Melville walking across the playing turf with a microphone. Behind him, a pair of students are carrying out some kind of banner, unfurling it along the field. From here I can see that it’s a flag, deep blue with white and orange bands and a star in the upper left corner.
Which is when I realize that it’s the flag of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Which is the last thing I need right now.
“Hello, everyone,” Dr. Melville says. “I’d like to invite a very special student down to talk to you.” He gestures up to the stands, to where I’m sitting. “A young man whose background and ambition are the very definition of the opportunity that Connaughton Academy offers to those with the willingness to advance in the world . . .” He pauses. “Alumni, parents, and faculty, please welcome William Shea.”
The applause is thunderous.
“What is this?” I mutter, rising up slowly on knees that don’t seem to be working quite right, and make my way down the aisle toward the field.
As I walk past Andrea, I feel her reach up and swat me on the butt. I look around at her.
“Did you do this?” I ask.
She grins. “Go get ’em, tiger.”
Twenty-Four
“MANY OF YOU MAY NOT KNOW,” DR. MELVILLE IS SAYING as I make my way out onto the field, “that Mr. Shea comes to us from halfway around the world, hailing from a remote Pacific Island called Ebeye.”
From out in the crowd, I hear a single cackling laugh. I don’t have to look up to know that it’s Brandt. I can tell he’s grinning at me. Dr. Melville ignores the distraction and presses dutifully on.
“I received an email last week from another student asking if Mr. Shea could come up and speak to all of us today about his homeland, about some of the ongoing difficulties that they’ve been facing for the past fifty years since the government began testing nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands.” Dr. Melville’s voice becomes solemn. “The student who wrote that email is here with us today, and I’d like to invite her down as well.” Turning, he gestures up to the stands again. “Andrea Dufresne?”
More applause. Andrea glides down on it like a pageant queen on a parade float of destiny. “Thank you, Dr. Melville.” She takes the microphone from him and gives me a quick glance out of the corner of her eye—and now I don’t even know her angle. I’ve clearly been snookered so smoothly that I didn’t even realize it was happening, but I don’t even know what else Andrea has up her sleeve.
“As many of you know,” she says, “I’m a scholarship student myself. My parents were U.S. aid workers who lost their lives in the Balkans. I’m attending Connaughton thanks to the gracious support of the administration and alumni endowments. But when I heard about the obstacles that Will has had to overcome after the tragic death of both of his parents—who were flying medicine to an orphanage when their lives were so unexpectedly cut short—and the way that his community came together to send him here for school, well . . . I knew that I’d found not just a kindred spirit for myself, but an inspiration for all of us.” She looks up at the flag. “Will, can you tell us a little bit about your country’s flag?”
As she leans over to give me the microphone. I cup my hand over it, still smiling, and whisper, “I will so get you for this.”
“Sure,” she whispers, and smiles back.
I look up. The crowd has fallen silent, their eyes on me. Over my shoulder I can hear the flag flapping and popping in the breeze.
“This flag . . .” I begin, and take a breath, wondering why I never bothered to learn what “my” flag represented. “Of course, the deep blue symbolizes the ocean. These orange and white stripes you see here are the symbol of hope and . . . ah, good stewardship. And the sun in the corner represents . . . uh . . . the sun. Which is extremely bright in my country. And hot.”
I glance over at Dr. Melville, but he’s not smiling anymore. He actually looks a little confused. Walking over, he takes the microphone from my hand and turns to look at the flag.
“Excuse me, Mr. Shea,” he says, “but when I wrote my doctoral thesis on the Marshall Islands, it was my understanding that the twenty-four-pointed star in the corner is a representation of the twenty-four municipal districts. And the orange and white bands symbolize the Ratak and Ralik chains?” He turns back to me, extending the microphone. “Isn’t that right?”
“Actually,” I say, “no.”
His eyebrows hike up halfway to his hairline. “No?”
“No. Because, you see, the flag was actually redefined last year. All those symbols mean different things now. The government changed it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “They changed it?”
I nod. “They took a vote, and the people decided they wanted it to mean something different. It was called the, uh, Cultural Transition Initiative. It’s really fascinating, in fact. You should read up on it.”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” he says, giving me back the microphone and taking a step back, looking more bewildered than ever. Up in the stands, people are beginning to lose interest, and I realize that halftime is going to be over soon but not quite soon enough. As the band marches out onto the field, Andrea steps forward and takes the microphone from me.
“As a special treat,” she says, “Will has volunteered to sing us his country’s national anthem, ‘Forever Marshall Islands.’” She turns to me. “Ready, Will?”
“Actually, I don’t think—”
“Our marching band has already learned the music. Don’t leave us hanging.”
I take her hand. “Only if you join me.”
“I don’t know the words.”
“Just follow my lead,” I say, as the band strikes up a stately tune that sounds oddly similar to “The Star-Spangled Banner” but that must, in fact, be the anthem of my homeland far away. When the moment seems right, I take in a deep breath and begin to sing, with as much gusto as I can manage:
Oh, Marshall Islands,
My home across the sea.
You are a very small island,
Extremely difficult to see.
Most maps don’t include you;
You’re not on any chart.
But oh, Marshall Islands—
You’re always in my heart.
Somewhere across the field, Dr. Melville is shouting something over the music. He doesn’t have a microphone, but I can read lips well enough to know what he’s saying: “Those aren’t the lyrics!” And he’s right, of course—if the person who’d written the actual Marshall Islands national anthem were here now, he’d probably be ready to have me dragged away in chains for a year of cultural awareness training, which, quite frankly, would’ve come in really handy before I’d started telling people I was from there.
I turn to Andrea, who—against almost insurmountable odds—has managed to keep a straight face, and now she joins me in repeating the ridiculous words that I just made up on the spot. We’re going faster now, upping the tempo of the song. Still belting out the lyrics, she spins around to the band conductor, grabs his baton, and swings both arms up in the air, kicking the drum majorettes into triple time as the rest of the band struggles frantically to keep up. Cymbals crash, and the stately anthem accelerates into a Dixieland swing. Our mascot, Colby the Connaughton Cougar, has run out onto the field and starts doing backflips in front of the band.
“You’re not on any chart . . .” Now the lyrics come out sounding like some alternate-universe combination of pep rally and New Orleans funeral. “You’re always in my heart . . .” Andrea pivots around to face the stands. “Come on, everybody,” she shouts, “on your feet! You know this part!”
I look out and I’m amazed at what I see. The music has done something to the students and faculty and alumni, and now they’re on their feet, singing along while Andrea coaches them through it. As Colby the Cougar executes a perfect handspring in front of us, I lean in again and join Andrea for the third chorus. Encouraged by Colby and the response of the Connaughton crowd, the band is now doing some crazy drumline moves that I’m pretty sure nobody’s seen before, and a few of them grab the flag and wave it high in the air. Dr. Melville is now trying to push his way through to grab the microphone, but he can’t get through the majorettes and the color guard. Meanwhile, Andrea and I are bringing it home.
“But oh, Marshall Islands,” we finish together, “you’re always in my heart!” And when the drums and trumpets thunder to a crescendo, the crowd erupts in a roar of spontaneous applause. I realize I’m smiling, and Andrea is too, and I can’t tell if either of us really means it, but at the moment it doesn’t matter. For the moment I’ve forgotten about Gatsby. I’m back in my element, doing what I do best, faking it like a champ, and it feels good.
“Thank you,” Andrea says to the crowd, sounding a little out of breath. Her cheeks are bright red and her eyes are reflecting tiny darts of the early-November sunlight, and when she looks at me, the smile on her face is genuine. “You guys are the best.” She grabs my hand again. “Which is why I know you’re going to be excited when you hear this next part—one week from today, next Saturday, the head of the Ebeye Children’s Health Clinic is going to be here at Connaughton to receive the funds to build a new orphanage on the island that Will Shea calls home.”
“Wait . . .” I stare at her.
My thoughts go spinning in a corkscrew, fluttering to the bottom of my brainpan. Meanwhile, Andrea gestures to the band, and they reach down to unfurl a new banner, which reads: Connaughton Academy Supports the Orphans of Ebeye!
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