“What about you?” I asked. “Who are you taking?”
Dalton shrugged. “Haven’t asked anyone yet. Maybe I’ll try the whole stag thing.”
“Psh,” I said, and rolled my eyes. Royce Dalton without a date? I couldn’t picture it.
“What?” Dalton asked, the corner of his lips twitching up sheepishly. I tried not to think about how cute he was when he smiled, the way it made my stomach drop like I was standing on top of a high ledge glancing down. “You don’t think I can hack it for one night alone?”
“I think there are at least a hundred girls at Knollwood who are dying to go to the dance with you, and to not ask a single one of them seems a little rude.”
“Oh, so I need to ask someone for the greater good?”
“Oh, please,” I said. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t enjoy yourself. There’s gotta be at least one girl at Knollwood you’d want to go with.”
“Well, I was going to ask you, but you already have three dates, so it appears I’m too late,” Dalton said.
I rolled my eyes again. Dalton was such a flirt. I pitied the girl who took him too seriously.
“Yes, it’s too bad,” I said. “But you can’t really mess with tradition.”
After Dalton left and meandered across the library to sit with Ren and Darcy, Stevie returned to our table with her book.
“He was totally asking you to the dance,” Stevie said, exasperated. “And you completely shut him down.”
I sighed. “He was not, and I did not,” I said. “It’s amazing to me that someone who’s so great at deconstructing Plath’s esoteric poetry could so completely misread a normal conversation that plays out right in front of her in plain English.”
“Okay, Cleopatra,” Stevie said.
“Cleopatra?”
“Queen of Denial,” Stevie explained.
I chucked my pencil at her.
I tried not to let my gaze flicker across the room to Dalton every time I looked up from my reading, but I couldn’t help myself. I found myself watching him as he read, wondering what he was saying every time he leaned over to talk to Ren or Darcy. When I looked up later and found that their table was empty, that Dalton had left, I felt a sharp pang of disappointment.
“Does this one look okay?”
Yael turned sideways and glanced at herself in the mirror, taking in the angles of the dress.
Dress shopping with Yael was hellish because everything looked good on her tall, slender frame. Currently she was wearing a short, high-necked, sleeveless dress in dark blue. There was a sheer overlay that was embellished with hundreds of beads and crystals. The style accentuated Yael’s tiny waist and her legs that went on for days, and the color popped against her porcelain skin.
“I hate you,” I said, and I was only half joking.
It was Friday afternoon and Yael, Drew, Stevie, and I were at Delphine’s, the only boutique in Falls Church, shopping for our homecoming dresses. I had been dragged there against my will and despite many protests. I found my dress in about two minutes. In fact, it was the first and only dress I tried on: a short wine-colored silk dress with a low back. Simple yet elegant. It was the only dress there that didn’t scream Pretty Pretty Princess. The other girls tried on dresses made of soft chiffon, or frothy lace, or full skirts of tulle in soft pastels: rose, mint, periwinkle. I had dutifully held their hangers and fished through the racks for different sizes and offered second opinions for the past hour, but my patience was wearing thin. A dress was a dress, and they were all starting to look the same to me. Currently, I was draping myself over the chair in Yael’s dressing room and fiddling with my phone as she undressed.
I couldn’t help but think about that night: the first item for the A’s was due by midnight. The first challenge, and they had given us just two days to complete it.
I had done my homework: I had a basic understanding of Nancy’s schedule—where she would be, and when, and who would be with her. The other afternoon, I had staked out a place on the quad with a good view of the headmaster’s house. My spot was on a hill, so I could see over the fence into the backyard. I did my trigonometry homework as I tracked Nancy’s comings and goings. I felt more than a little ridiculous stalking a dog.
“Do you like this one?” Drew asked, opening Yael’s dressing room door without knocking. She had on a champagne-colored high-low chiffon dress with a sweetheart neckline.
Yael shifted her weight to her back leg and carefully considered the dress, standing only in her bra and underwear but seemingly unconcerned with her state of undress.
“Turn,” Yael instructed, and Drew did a slow revolving circle in front of us.
“The high-low style is a little last season,” Yael said.
I noticed something red on the tag of the dress and I reached out to read it. “No wonder,” I said, taking a closer look. “This dress is last season. It’s been marked down.”
Drew quickly grabbed the tag back from me. “Whoops, somebody must have accidentally put this on the new-dresses rack. I hate it when sale items get mixed in with the good stuff.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a good deal,” Stevie said, peeking her head over the divider. She was in the dressing room next to Yael’s, but she was standing on a chair and leaning over, so I could only see her from the elbows up.
“I do kind of like it,” Drew said. “I can pull off vintage, right?”
“Are you feeling okay?” I asked jokingly, touching my hand to her forehead to measure her temperature. Drew’s mom was high up at some women’s fashion retailer, so Drew typically had a taste for high-end fashion. The newer and more expensive, the better. She was not one to dig through the discount rack.
Drew pushed my hand away.
“Ignore her. You look hot,” Stevie said.
“Hot enough to make Crosby break up with Ren?” Drew asked.
“Are they back together again?” Yael asked.
“I can’t tell,” Drew said. “But he hasn’t asked me to the dance yet, so I figured they were.”
“I thought we were all going together,” I said, looking up from my phone, a little annoyed. “Or are we just your backup?”
“Re-lax,” Drew said, drawing out the syllables. “You girls are always my first choice. But, you know, you don’t appreciate me in a dress the way the boys do. And also, I love you all dearly, but I really don’t want to make out with you.”
“Dalton asked Charlie to the dance,” Stevie cooed.
“What? When?” Drew chirped.
“You didn’t tell me that,” Yael said, and she gave my forearm a pinch.
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my skin.
“It happened in the library the other day, and she turned him down,” Stevie said.
“You turned down Royce Dalton?” Yael asked, her eyes wide.
I glared at Stevie. “Apparently, sarcasm and humor are lost on some people,” I said. “He wasn’t serious.”
“He was too serious,” Stevie said. “I bet you could get him to ask you again if you encouraged him a little. He seemed so heartbroken when you blew him off.”
“I don’t know,” Drew said, biting her thumbnail and considering. “I heard he was going with McKenna St. Clare. She was going on and on about what boutonniere to get him to match her dress in French class this morning.”
“Oh,” Stevie said, deflated. She looked at me with soulful eyes, like she felt sorry for me—like I cared that Dalton was going to homecoming with McKenna St. Clare instead of me.
McKenna St. Clare was a sophomore—the prettiest girl in her class. She was tall and waiflike, with green, almond-shaped eyes.
“Yeah,” I said, making a big show of rolling my eyes. “He sounds like he was really heartbroken that I turned him down. He must have waited a whole two minutes before asking someone else.”
I was trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing, but my joke landed wrong. I sounded bitter, which was unfair, because I wasn’t bitter. I wasn’t.
&
nbsp; Yael bit her lip. “Royce Dalton would make a poor dance partner anyway. He’s too tall for you.”
“Yeah,” Drew echoed. “He’s just so . . .”
She trailed off, searching for a derogatory adjective to make me feel better. When she couldn’t find one, she deflected.
“Hey, help me out of this dress, will you?” she asked me, turning around.
I tugged at her zipper.
I couldn’t stay there and listen to their pity, their lousy but well-intentioned attempts at making me feel better that I wasn’t going to the dance with Dalton. Especially since I didn’t want to go to the dance with him anyway. I didn’t.
“I have some errands to run in town,” I said, throwing my phone in my purse. “I’ll catch up with you guys later, okay?”
“Want me to come with you?” Stevie asked, her voice all soft and cushiony, like I was some fragile creature about to break.
“No,” I snapped.
She visibly jerked back as if I had slapped her.
“I mean, no, thanks,” I said, forcing myself to smile. “I’ll just see you later.”
“Sure,” she said.
I left, knowing they would probably start talking about me in pitying tones as soon as I was out of earshot, which was really annoying. And what was even more annoying was that they honestly thought I would go for someone like Royce Dalton in the first place. Royce Dalton—the biggest man-whore at Knollwood. Did they honestly think I would go to the dance with him and we would do all that sappy couple stuff? Dalton had practically written the smooth operator playbook. I was sure he would get me a corsage that perfectly matched my dress. When he was walking me home, he would notice that I was cold, and he would take off his jacket and drape it around my shoulders. And when we got to my door, we would make awkward small talk until he kissed me. We would have a nice time, I could picture it.
But, unlike my friends, I could also picture what would happen next. As soon as I let my guard down, Dalton would move on to the next pretty girl, and I would be just like Harper Cartwright, making the stink eye at him from across the way at A’s meetings. No, thank you. Hard pass. McKenna St. Clare could have him, for all I cared.
At Mimi’s, the local grocery store, I put a pound of raw bacon and a box of Ziploc baggies on the checkout counter and called my sister in Reading.
“Is everything okay?” Seraphina answered my call slightly panicked. It was rare for us to call one another, when texting took such little effort.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.
“What is it, Saturday?” she asked. I could picture her lounging on her dorm bed, picking at her fingernails. “Hopefully, practicing my two favorite deadly sins: gluttony and sloth,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Uncle Hank called me the other day,” I said.
I lied because I didn’t want to alarm her by telling her that he had come to see me, or mentioning the pictures.
“That wacko?” Seraphina asked. “What did he want?”
“Well, you know how Grandma and Grandpa Fairchild always have that thing every year for Mom’s birthday?”
There was a pause.
“Yeah,” she said.
“He wanted me to come,” I said. “Actually, he wanted both of us to come.”
There was another pause on the line, this one longer. The lady behind the counter rang up my items slowly and put them in a paper bag.
“Seraphina, you still there?” I asked, holding the phone between my chin and shoulder as I handed the cashier a twenty from my wallet.
“I don’t understand why you want to go, I guess,” Seraphina said.
I mouthed, Thanks, to the lady behind the counter and headed out the front of the store onto the sidewalk with my purchases.
It was a fair enough question, and the truth was, if it weren’t for the pictures, I wouldn’t have wanted to go. But I had seen the pictures, and those pictures had unsettled me. I wasn’t sure what they were all about, what they meant, but they raised questions. Questions I couldn’t leave unanswered. But I didn’t know how to make Seraphina understand that without telling her everything, and I didn’t want to do that over the phone.
“I just think it’s time,” I said. “I mean, they’re still our family, whatever our mother did.”
The thing was, I had to go back to Hillsborough. I had to go back to the house on Langely Lake. I had to talk to my mother’s oldest friend, Claire. And maybe if my sister was there, and I could explain everything to her, we could do this together.
“I don’t know,” Seraphina said. “I’m fine seeing them at Christmas and stuff, but it feels weird to go to something that’s all about her. And Dad would be pissed if he found out.”
“It’s just for one night,” I said. “If we hate it, we can leave, I promise.”
There was a sigh. A long drawn-out breath.
“If I figure out the train schedule, will you come?” I asked. “I can pick you up in Hillsborough.”
“I suppose I can practice my deadly sins another time,” Seraphina said.
“You are the picture of virtue, my good sister,” I said.
Drew knelt next to my desk drawer and worked the lock with the ends of two large paper clips.
“Fuck,” she said. “It broke.”
She tossed the broken paper clip on the floor and reached for a fresh clip from the pile next to her.
“Don’t push so hard,” I said as I sat on my bed and pulled on a pair of black booties. Drew had to steal Ren’s sealed file from the counselor’s office for her ticket, so she was practicing on my locked desk drawer. I’d overheard enough of the lock-picking tutorials she’d watched on YouTube to get the gist of the process.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Drew said as she inserted two fresh paper clips into the drawer’s lock and tried again.
I glanced at the time on my phone. It was nearing eleven o’clock. In my closet mirror, I checked my all-black ensemble: black jeans, black booties, black tank, black pullover. How convenient that all black was both practical for late-night burglaries and stylishly classic.
There was a loud click and I looked over to see Drew pulling my desk drawer open.
“Nailed it,” she said.
“Told you.”
I got the package of bacon from Mimi’s out of our mini fridge and pulled several strips from the pack. I placed them in a Ziploc bag, which I folded and tucked into the pocket of my pullover.
“So, I’ll see you at the Ledge in an hour?” I asked as I headed toward our window.
Drew pursed her lips and smacked them loudly, a kiss goodbye.
Nancy was just where I knew she’d be: in the backyard of the headmaster’s house, lounging in the shadow of an elm. It was lucky for me that things had gone down the way they had last Christmas with Nancy’s diamond collar and Mrs. Collins’s vacuum cleaner. Mrs. Collins’s unabated wrath over the whole thing was the reason Nancy was driven to sleep outside in the yard when the weather was nice enough instead of slumbering on a silk pillow at the foot of the Collinses’ bed.
Getting up and over the fence was an easy enough job. Nancy didn’t even stir from her place beneath the elm. She just lifted her head and watched me lazily. The Collinses’ back porch light came on, triggered by my movement, and I went very still and crouched down, in case one of the Collinses happened to look out. I made my way toward Nancy slowly, crawling along the ground.
When I got closer to her, Nancy growled, a low rumble in the back of her throat. She stood, her muscles rigid, as if at any moment she might lunge at me. I stopped where I was, just a few feet from her.
“Easy, girl,” I said.
I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket and clicked open the dog-whistle app I had downloaded earlier that day. Just as Nancy sprang toward me, I hit the button.
Of course, I couldn’t hear anything, so for one terrifying moment, I thought it might not have worked. But then Nancy froze. She sat back on her haunches and whined, cocking her head to
the side. I clicked the button again to silence the whistle.
“There’s no reason we can’t both get what we want here,” I said.
I withdrew the Ziploc bag of bacon from my pocket and opened it. Nancy sniffed at the air. Her tongue lapped at the sides of her mouth. I took a few strips out and laid them on the ground at my feet. Nancy came forward eagerly and started to feast.
“Sorry about that pureed-carrot diet they have you on,” I said. “I’m afraid that’s my fault.”
I leaned down cautiously. I could see the buckle clasp for Nancy’s diamond collar at the nape of her neck. I imagined reaching for it, and Nancy whipping around and catching my hand in her razor-sharp teeth. I shook the thought from my mind. Nancy would have to take a few of my fingers before I’d risk failing a ticket and being excluded from the A’s.
I reached forward slowly until my hands were on the back of Nancy’s neck. She didn’t growl or draw away from me; she was so preoccupied with the bacon that she didn’t seem to notice me at all. I made quick work of the clasp and slid the heavy collar off her neck and into my pocket.
“Good girl,” I said.
Nancy looked up at me then, and something seemed to shift behind her eyes. I noticed she had finished the bacon, and I fished nervously in the Ziploc bag for the last few strips. I threw them on the ground at her feet, but Nancy didn’t seem to notice them.
A low growl ripped through her belly. The folds around her eyes drew back across her forehead; she bared her teeth and let out one mean bark. I tried to reach around in my pocket for my phone and the dog whistle app, but my fingers were slippery with bacon grease. Instead, I turned on my heel and I ran as fast as I could toward the fence.
As close as I was, I knew I wasn’t fast enough to beat Nancy with her four legs to my two. I could feel her teeth in the flesh of my ankle as she lunged and nipped at my feet. I let out a gasp at her bite and stumbled forward.
I was at the fence now. I got my footing in the railing and lifted myself up and over before Nancy could bring herself to strike again. Still, I could hear her pacing there, just on the other side of the fence, waiting to see if I’d come back.
All These Beautiful Strangers Page 7