by Sarah Miller
I can’t believe Dr. Whitmeyer wanted to know what I had in common with her.
As we came down the hill Gid saw me. His leg missed a beat, then another one. Nicholas’s eyes flashed at me, and I could see the blue in them from this far away, and then his head shifted back to Gideon. He said something to him, and Gid looked away from me, then he looked back.
Edie and I began to jump rope in the middle of the field. I had selected this precisely because we would trip a lot and have to stop. I hadn’t anticipated looking like such a fool.
“This is so stupid,” I said to Edie. “Sorry.”
“I just hope it works,” Edie said. She didn’t say, “It’s OK,” or “It’s not stupid.”
We jumped a few times, tripped, jumped, tripped, jumped.
“Maybe we should do some push-ups,” Edie said.
We did some push-ups. The grass was wet and freezing. Edie did girl ones, and I struggled with regular.
I was embarrassed. But not as embarrassed as I’d be if I did girl push-ups.
Gid and Nicholas had just finished running and were bent over their feet, catching their breath. Gid looked up, his eyes narrowing with focused attention. He was watching Pilar run. He finished his stretch and muttered something to Nicholas. Nicholas made a sort of whatever-floats-your-boat gesture, and Gid went to stretch over next to the bleachers, far away from us. But Nicholas was watching us, and then, strangely, he came over, looking uncharacteristically curious.
“OK,” Edie said. “Good. Here he comes. Don’t stop jumping. We need to look authentic.”
“I am authentically about to pass out,” I said. I don’t know when I had ever had my attention pulled in so many directions. I wanted our plan with Nicholas to work out and I really, really didn’t want Gideon to go talk to Pilar again. She thought about her plan: no stupid flirting just for attention. She wasn’t going to give him anything. At least she wasn’t placing too many demands on my consciousness at present. The more you hear First my stomach, then my mind, the easier it gets to tune it out.
Nicholas was a few feet away from us, surveying the ground. Finding a suitable place, he plopped down and stretched out his legs. He bent his head into his knee. He stayed that way for a long time. He finally looked up. He squinted at me, sizing me up. “You guys are in the worst shape,” he said.
“Whoa,” Edie said. “You said Cullen and Nicholas were dicks, but I didn’t imagine they’d be this much of dicks.”
This was a smart tactic on Edie’s part. She was good at reading people, and Nicholas tended to enjoy girls who told him off, mostly, I guess, because they reminded him of boys.
Nicholas nodded. “You do know your muscles can atrophy, even when you’re young? From lack of use?”
“Interesting,” Edie said.
Then Nicholas’s attention was on his hamstring for a long time. It seemed like he was done with us. I gave Edie a look: this isn’t going to work, I’m sorry. She looked back at me: Do something.
Miraculously, Nicholas returned his attention to us. “It’s kind of weird that you just randomly, like, decided to start working out this morning. I mean, you used to always complain about Gideon leaving your room to work out in the morning. And now you’re working out.”
This was such bullshit. I never ever used to complain about Gid getting up. He used to complain about it and sometimes sleep in. But I never said a thing. It made me furious that Gid would blame his being lazy on me, but I guess that’s what guys do. Put all their own weaknesses onto their girlfriends.
“Oh well,” I said. I was determined to be breezy. “I guess you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“Seriously,” Nicholas said, “why are you guys working out?”
I couldn’t even say it. It just sounded so stupid. But this was Edie’s part of the plan.
“Well, we’re working out because it’s, like, supposed to make your brain quicker.”
“So what are you guys doing? I mean, why do you want to be smarter?”
“Because we’re doing ATAT,” I said. “Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan’s making us be on it. It’s just such a drag.”
Nicholas suddenly jumped up and was frantically raking his hands through his hair. “Who did she pick to be on it?”
We’d hooked him.
We listed everyone who’d been picked for the team except him.
“I am smarter than all those guys,” he said, his blue eyes blazing with indignation. “I mean, I can’t even believe she didn’t ask me. I wouldn’t do it. I mean, just because I am not a total dork. I mean, come on. Devon?”
“He does know all about sports,” Edie said. “There are all those sports questions.”
We all walked up the hill together. I was muddy and exhausted, but also relieved.
Nicolas jabbed his thumb toward his chest emphatically. “I know about sports. I know about sports and I’m not stupid. Or fat. And I’m not going to be high at all the matches. You know that Devon’s going to be high at all the matches, don’t you? I know about sports and I am a person who knows when and when not to smoke pot.” When Nicholas left us at our dorm, he was still mad. “See you guys later,” he said. He shook his head. “Man. Just because I’m not a dork, I don’t get any credit for being smart.” He walked off.
Edie looked at me and shrugged.
“Is that it?” she said.
“For now,” I replied. “That went very well.”
She nodded and left me on the second-floor landing in our dorm, where a circular window looked out on the playing fields and the track. The sun was breaking through the mist. Pilar was on one end of the track, doing sit-ups, special, fancy, spa-friendly sit-ups, with her arms stretched behind her head and her legs hovering over the ground. And Gid was coming up the hill. Good. At least for today, it was over.
But then he turned around. He walked back to her, and she watched him coming toward her. I wish he would leave me alone, but I also kind of like how he ees coming toward me, so serious. I feel like I am on TV.
“Pilar,” Gid said. “Look. I’m sorry I didn’t really speak up for you yesterday. I should have said something to Mads.”
“Forget it,” she said, playing it cool.
Then her phone rang. It was her mother. Pilar’s mother was blond, and, as the Jones part of her last name suggested, very American. “Mother!” Pilar cried. “This call is so clear! I can’t believe it!”
“Yes, well, that’s because we’re in Boston, darling. We’re taking a boat to London tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? But we…we start classes today.”
Pilar’s mother had a wry, hurried way of speaking. “We’d love to have dinner tonight, but if you’re busy, we will be back on the fourteenth of December, though we’re coming into New York, and I’m not sure—”
“No no no no,” Pilar said. “I can make that. Wait…you’re going to be gone for six months?”
“Well, yes, I mean, first of all, there are so many different styles of cuisine in Italy, I mean, in Umbria alone…and with your father, of course, every time we get to a new place he has to wheeze and rant for a time before he can manage to get himself going. Oh, darling! I have to run! I am getting a private tour of the tapestry collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. They have this particular red thread on a tapestry, and I am trying to get dye matched for a piece in the house in Tigre. I want to see if the tapestry curator will give me a strand from the restoration spools. Fingers crossed! See you at 7:30, at the Fairmont. In the Oak Room. Oh…and please don’t be late. They have an absolutely exquisite sorrel soup, but it does run out.”
Then she was gone.
“Shit,” Pilar said, snapping her phone closed. She looked at Gideon, a sudden desperation in her eyes. “Can you come with me to Boston tonight? Please?”
Chapter Fourteen
The good news was that Nicholas had gone home, showered, and marched straight over to Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan’s office, where he had demanded to be on ATAT.
&nbs
p; The other good news was that I wasn’t really worried about Pilar and Gid’s “date,” if it even was one. I wasn’t afraid that Gid was going to get some. It was obvious Pilar was just doing her suede mousie thing with him.
Gid would probably fuck it up himself.
But just in case he didn’t, there had to be something I could do.
Meanwhile, we had our first ATAT practice. It was in a little room off the dining hall, a depressing, forgotten corner with vinyl paneling and old travel posters from the Italian Alps.
I had not planned on being in this room ever, for anything, but I was going to be here every night for almost the rest of this year now.
ATAT practice worked like this: Everyone was assigned a partner and had a subject, like Kings, or Cooking Terms, or Inventors. You quizzed each other for twenty minutes, and then switched partners and subjects.
Nicholas and I had Classic Rock Quotes.
“Two lost souls…,” Nicholas began.
“Pink Floyd, duh,” I said.
Nicholas pursed his lips and tapped his black Earth shoe against the floor. “Christ on the cross,” he said.
We looked around the room. Devon and Edie were doing the Civil War. Dan Dooras and Mickey were next to us, quizzing each other on African capitals. They were taking a break and Dan approached us, his gaping fish mouth open. “Uh…I might as well explain this to both of you,” he said, “while you’re taking a break…”
“Ah, yes, but we’re not taking a break.” I could tell Nicholas was totally irritated at some guy who was a complete social pariah suggesting that he knew what Nicholas was or wasn’t doing.
“Dust in the wind. Everything is dust in the wind.”
Nicholas gave me a duh look.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Kansas!” he said. “I mean, did your parents not just play that album all the time? Shit. Mine did. It was how I knew they were getting divorced.”
Dan opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again and said, “My parents only listened to Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. We didn’t have any conception that there was another band in the world besides the Eagles though, so we just called Fleetwood Mac the Lady Eagles.”
“Weren’t you supposed to tell us something?” Nicholas said.
“Oh, yeah.” Dan patted his flat brown hair. “I used to be Dan D,” he said. “But Dan Renton, Dan R, graduated. So now I am just Dan.”
Nicholas gave me an elaborate eye roll to show me how much he was being tortured. Dan blinked. “OK,” Nicholas said. “Thanks.”
By the end of the practice it was pretty clear who was good at what: Nicholas knew history, I knew books, Edie knew both those things too but not as well as we did but she was a lot better at math, which was good because there was a three-person math challenge in every match. Dan knew a lot of obscure stuff, especially about sports and inventions. For example, he knew who Robert Fulton was, and afterward, during a break, I overheard him telling Mickey more about Robert Fulton, until Mickey finally said, “OK, Robert Fulton, American Treasure. I get it, dude.”
Edie and I were together for the last round, and we had Fashion Terms.
“A framework to expand the fullness or support the drapery of a woman’s dress,” I said.
“Bustle,” Edie answered quickly.
“A narrow neckband with wide, pointed wings,” I said.
“Shit. Fuck. I don’t know whether it’s an ascot or a cravat.”
I smiled enigmatically.
“Shit. Cravat.”
“An excellent guess,” I said, “but the cravat has a bow. All right. When folded in a decorative way and used to ornament a suit, a brightly patterned handkerchief may be called a…?”
Edie wrinkled up her face in scorn. “Duh, pocket square,” she said. “Those are so gay.”
I gasped. I had my solution.
“Molly?” Edie said.
But I was already up and gunning for Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan, who was sitting in a threadbare chintz chair in the corner of the room, correcting papers. “I have to leave early,” I said. She didn’t look up at first. She was writing a comment in caps, with her red pen: YES, BUT WHY?
She gave me a withering smile. “Molly,” she said quietly, “you’re the captain. It’s a bad example if you leave early.”
I nodded. “I know that. And I want you to know I wouldn’t be leaving unless it were really important.”
“Did someone die?” she asked, adjusting her glasses impatiently in a way that suggested she knew no one had died.
“No,” I said. I looked up at the clock. It was ten of five. I didn’t have a lot of time. “No one died.”
She looked back at her papers. “I hope whatever you’re doing is worthy of my letting you go,” she said. “If it contributes to your peace of mind, perhaps it is a worthy intrusion on our practice.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Really, seriously, thanks.”
She didn’t look up and her expression didn’t change at all. She wrote again in the margin: SHALLOW ARGUMENT.
Midvale wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, but it did have a tiny old-fashioned department store called Maury’s, right next to the train station. It was wood-paneled and smelled of dry cleaning, the rubber soles on cheap sneakers and, inexplicably, candy. Maury was a wiry old man in a bow tie, reading the Arts and Culture section of The Globe, and he looked absolutely astonished to find me standing there.
“Young lady,” he said. “How can I help you?”
I told him I needed pocket squares.
He got a faraway look in his rheumy eyes. “Pocket squares. Very popular with young men in the eighties. Meant, I think, to evoke a sort of aristocratic British club atmosphere, but screamingly middle-class.”
I nodded and said, “Exactly.”
He stood there and looked at me. “All right,” he said.
“All right what?” I replied.
“I’m going to go in the back and look for them.” He didn’t move. Then he inhaled deeply through his nose, came out from behind the counter, and exhaled. He walked to the back, his black shoes heavy on the brown linoleum floor.
He came out a few minutes later with one draped over each hand. “Red or paisley?”
The paisley had a lavender background with yellow, red, and white accents.
“Oh, paisley,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “It is the more distasteful.” He shook his head and smiled. “It is amazing, isn’t it, how a person can just ruin their appearance with just one unsightly accessory!”
I nodded. “Amazing, and fortunate.”
He briefly explained how to sew the pocket square into a jacket. He then wrapped it in a layer of yellow tissue. I tucked it into my coat and smiled at him. “I’m going to do something sneaky with this,” I said.
He had twinkling, co-conspirator’s eyes. “Something so hideous can only be used for revenge.”
I asked him if he was Maury, and he gave a wry little laugh. “Certainly not. Maury has no idea about these things.”
The boys had always kept a spare key in the well of the fire extinguisher in the hallway, and it was still there when I went looking for it. I just walked into Gideon’s dorm in broad daylight, like I belonged there.
Being in his room made me feel sick. Made my heart beat and my stomach fill with acid. But I didn’t have time to think about how I felt. I had a job to do. Gid was going to look like a serious loser, and he wasn’t even going to know it.
There were two closets, a big one and a little one, and the little one was Gid’s.
You would think—I thought to myself, as, per the instructions of my friendly clerk from Maury’s, I sewed the pocket square into the lining of Gideon’s jacket—that a guy would notice if he suddenly had a pocket square on his jacket where there had before been none. But if I knew Gideon like I thought he did, he was going to throw this thing on at the last minute and not even look in the mirror.
I hung Gid’s jacket back exactly as I
had found it, with the hanger going the wrong way. I was about to leave when I thought I might take one other precaution. I hid Nicholas’s and Cullen’s jackets so Gideon wouldn’t be tempted to wear them. I flipped through their clothes, moving some to the back of the closet. My foot hit something, and I looked down.
The whole back of the closet was lined with seedling trays.
They were growing pot again. Even though they’d gotten busted with it before. What a bunch of stupid assholes.
I wanted to throw the plants out. I was worried for Gid. But then I reminded myself he just wasn’t my problem.
Well, as long as he didn’t hook up with Pilar he wasn’t.
Chapter Fifteen
Pilar stood near the black iron Midvale gates. A quick thunderstorm had come and gone in twenty minutes, leaving the pavement dark, the grass and leaves greener, and the air cool and fresh. She’d made her way around the track again several times and done three different Pilates DVDs. She’d selected her dress carefully—a lavender bias-cut silk dress with red polka dots, and the cream-colored T-straps she got at Neiman Marcus last year. She’d watched her Mala Rodríguez video and felt thin.
As Gid approached she tried to sell herself on his cuteness. He had just shaved, and he was getting more and more to shave. His hair was the right amount of neat and tousled. He broke into a smile, and Pilar noticed the charming, extremely slight protrusion of his left incisor.
Then she saw the pocket square. She didn’t even really know what it was. She just knew that Gid looked really fucking gay. As he got closer, she could see tiny stiff black threads along the visible seams. It was cheap. It was polyester.