All These Beautiful Strangers

by Elizabeth Klehfoth

  “You can’t forgive Dalton and not me,” Leo said. “That’s not fair.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  I still wasn’t sure where that left me.

  “You’re still going to help me with the donations for the Trustee Benefit Gala tomorrow, right?” Leo asked.

  “What do you mean ‘still’?” I asked. “I don’t remember volunteering in the first place.”

  “I’m making everyone help, and you’re no exception,” Leo said. He was president of the junior class and since the student council was in charge of organizing the event, he had to help out. “Besides, I’ve been so busy lately, I’ve barely had time to do anything for it, and the gala’s on Saturday.”

  I looked pointedly from him to the TV screen, where his attention was still fully absorbed in his game. “Yeah, you look really busy,” I said.

  “What’d you get for your final ticket?” Leo asked, ignoring my comment.

  “I have to publish the pictures you took of Mr. Andrews groping me in the Chronicle,” I said.

  “That’s not so bad,” Leo said.

  I suppose he meant execution-wise.

  “I guess,” I said. “Do you have any idea what Mr. Andrews did to get on the A’s bad side?”

  “It’s more like what he didn’t do,” Leo said. “Or, should I say, who he didn’t do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I guess Ren had a thing for him, and he didn’t reciprocate. It must have really pissed her off.”

  “So we’re framing Mr. Andrews for hooking up with a student because he didn’t hook up with a student?”

  “Something like that,” Leo said.

  I couldn’t help but think of the dean of arts from last year, and how the A’s had driven him off campus by exposing his very explicit emails with a minor to the whole school. Had that been a setup too? At the time, I had viewed the A’s as some sort of dark-knight vigilantes, but now . . .

  “But doesn’t that seem messed up to you?” I asked.

  Leo shrugged. “It’s not that far off from what we’ve done so far, is it?”

  “Yes, it is,” I said.

  “How?” Leo asked, putting down his controller. “Remember when the A’s framed Auden for messing with Mr. Franklin’s photograph? You were all pissed at first because they had left you out of it. We basically got him expelled.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” I said.

  “We’ve lied, cheated, stolen, vandalized, et cetera,” Leo said. “How is this any different?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “This just feels different to me.”

  But maybe Leo was right and it wasn’t different. Maybe, somehow, I was different.

  “Do you ever think about not doing what they want?” I asked. “Like, just quitting the Game and walking away? Not being an A?”

  “Not really,” Leo said. “I mean, especially at this point. We’ve put up with a lot of shit, but we’re almost through it. Soon it’ll be our turn.”

  Our turn. Our turn to do what had been done to us to a fresh group of initiates. Our turn to concoct and carry out our own revenge schemes and wage war against Headmaster Collins and the other faculty.

  “Besides,” Leo said, “trying to quit hasn’t worked out so well for others in the past, in case you hadn’t noticed. Remember Auden?”

  “But what if there weren’t consequences?” I asked.

  “There will be consequences,” Leo said. “You know what they have against us. Do you really want everyone to see those pictures? I mean, forget about what everyone at school will think. What if those pictures got leaked to our parents?”

  I was silent. It wasn’t just my fate that I was deciding; it was Leo’s too.

  “Tell me you’re not planning on doing something stupid,” Leo said.

  I just looked at him.

  “Charlie?”

  This was Leo—Leo—I would be hurting. Sure, Leo hadn’t been the most loyal person to me lately, but was I any better if I turned around and did the same to him? Loyalty to the people you love, to your family, is a moral code. If you don’t have loyalty, what do you have?

  “Of course not,” I said. “Don’t be so dramatic. I was just speaking hypothetically.”

  “Okay, good,” Leo said, picking his controller back up and returning his attention to his game.

  I couldn’t help but think that what Ren had said that first night at the Ledge was true—secrets bound us to one another. Not just me and Leo and the current A’s, but all the A’s. Now we were all inextricably linked. Either we were all going to get away with everything together, or we were all going to have to go down together in some respect—a collective crash and burn—because we were all guilty, in one way or another, of something.

  But then, who wasn’t?

  Somehow, despite my best efforts not to be helpful, I found myself in the dining hall on Wednesday afternoon sitting at a table with Dalton, Crosby, and Leo, cataloging donations for the Trustee Benefit Gala’s silent auction.

  “Here’s another vacation home,” Crosby said, handing me a one-page printout description and accompanying photographs of someone’s ski lodge in Jackson Hole.

  Apparently, everyone’s favorite thing to donate to the silent auction was a weeklong getaway to their vacation home (or luxury condo at Lake Tahoe, or chateau in the south of France, or Tuscan villa, or winery in Napa). It required the least amount of effort while simultaneously allowing people to flaunt just how rich they were, and all in the name of charity. It was the ultimate #humblebrag.

  “‘Rustic lodge allows you to commune with nature,’” I read from the printout. “What exactly do you think screamed ‘rustic’ to this guy?” I asked. “Was it the fourteen-person jetted marble-slab Jacuzzi? Or the in-home personal theater in the basement?”

  I angled the paper with the pictures so Crosby could see.

  “People think that just because they’re in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, they’re automatically camping or something,” Crosby said.

  “Once, we got stuck in Atlanta in a layover and had to stay at a Hilton by the airport,” Dalton said. “My mother actually used the words ‘roughing it.’”

  Dalton laughed and put his arm around the back of my chair. I felt his fingertips graze my shoulder, and I tried not to stiffen at his touch. The truth was, I’d felt odd being around Dalton ever since I had spotted those suitcases in his basement. And the hardest part was, I couldn’t exactly tell him what was up with me, because either I was being completely insane and the suitcases were just coincidentally the same type that my mother had owned, or they were actually her suitcases and Margot was weirdly tied up in her disappearance. I knew I had to get back in that basement and open them up, but I had no idea how I was going to do that.

  Part of me had been trying really hard not to think about those suitcases. Because if they did belong to my mother, what did that mean? I had never really allowed myself to believe that my mother hadn’t left us of her own free will. The alternative was just too horrible to imagine—that my father might have played some part in her disappearance, that he might have hurt her in some way. But if my mother hadn’t left us, then that meant that I had been wrong about a lot of things. All of this remoteness I carried around inside me was unfounded and misdirected. These walls I put up, the coldness and distance I cultivated like a shield—they were unnecessary. Because I hadn’t been betrayed and abandoned; I had been wanted and loved.

  That thought disarmed me.

  “How do we determine the minimum starting bid for each of these?” Crosby asked.

  “I’ll need to see what we made on ticket sales first,” Leo said. “Then we’ll know how much to gouge people at the auction to meet our goal. Charlie, can you get the cash box from Stevie and see if she has a final number yet?”

  “You’re very bossy lately,” I said. “I think all this political power you wield is going to your head.”

  “Yeah, don’t be such a tyrant, Callow
ay,” Dalton said. “At least say ‘please.’”

  “Has a class president ever been impeached before?” I asked.

  “There’s no precedent for that, I’m afraid,” Dalton said.

  “We could stage a coup,” I said. “I have a free period after trig tomorrow.”

  Leo sighed. “Pretty please with a cherry on top, will you go ask Stevie what we made on ticket sales and bring me the cash box?”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely,” I said, standing.

  I meandered across the dining hall to where Stevie and Yael were sitting with the cash box. I hadn’t talked to Yael since Drew was expelled, and I hadn’t spoken to Stevie since she had made that peace offering outside the dining hall a few weeks back. I still felt a little bad about brushing her off, but I hadn’t meant to. It was more bad timing than anything.

  I knew that I had kind of been an ass, and that Drew was the common factor that linked us, the glue that held our friendship together, but still. Stevie and Yael were my friends (weren’t they?), and I missed them.

  “Hey there,” I said, a little too cheerfully. I knew I sounded fake, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have much practice playing nice and trying to ingratiate myself with others. I had never cared to before.

  Yael stopped midsentence. The smile slid off her face when she saw that it was me. Stevie looked at me briefly and then back at the calculator in her hand. There were stacks of checks on the table in front of her.

  “Leo needs the cash box and the final ticket sale count,” I said.

  “It’ll be a minute,” Stevie said, still not looking at me.

  “Okay,” I said, sinking into the chair next to her as she punched another number into her calculator and the number on the screen grew. “Do you need any help?”

  “That wasn’t an invitation,” Yael said, glaring at me.

  I hadn’t exactly expected a warm welcome, but this was downright cold. I mean, I was at least trying here.

  “What exactly is your problem?” I asked.

  Yael sighed. “You can drop the act, Charlie,” she said. “We know it was you.”

  “You know what was me?”

  “Really? That’s how you’re going to play this?”

  “Yael, I’m not playing anything. I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The damn fish we found in our room,” Yael said, her voice rising. Stevie leaned forward and shushed her, and Yael lowered her voice to a fervent whisper. “I’m talking about the damn fish.”

  “The fish?” I asked.

  This whole time, I’d thought they were mad at me because they thought I was the one who asked Drew to steal the exam. I’d also considered they were mad at me because I’d been spending so much time with Dalton and the boys, like I had forgotten about them or something. But they weren’t talking to me because of something to do with a fish?

  “You know, you walk around all high and mighty with your secret little friends in your secret little group with your secret little secrets,” Yael said. “And you think everybody doesn’t know.”

  “Yael—” Stevie started, but Yael cut her off.

  “No, I’m not scared of her and her precious friends,” Yael said. She turned back to me, a fire in her eyes. “I overheard Darcy and Ren in the restroom a while back, talking about how they made you and Leo take the term ‘kissing cousins’ to a whole new level. That’s a strange kind of friendship, making you stick your tongue down your cousin’s throat before they deigned to hang out with you. They seemed to have a good laugh about it.”

  My cheeks flamed red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Just know this,” Yael said. “If you start coming after us, we’ll come after you. We know things, too.”

  “Yael,” Stevie said. “Stop.”

  Yael looked at Stevie and took a deep breath. Then she glared back at me.

  “You know what?” Yael said. “I’m not going to stoop to your level. Keep your self-involved games and your power plays and your manipulative backstabbing bitch fests. Just keep them the hell away from me.”

  I looked at Stevie to see if she agreed with her in all of this. She was breathing heavily, staring straight ahead at the table, refusing to meet my eye. After a moment, she sighed and began to gather the stacks of checks and pile them into the cash box.

  “Here,” Stevie said. She jotted a number down on a Post-it note, threw the calculator into the box, and shut it tight. She stuck the Post-it note on top. “Here’s the revenue from ticket sales,” she said, pushing the cash box toward me across the table.

  “Stevie?” I said.

  She looked at me then, and I almost wished she hadn’t, because I could see it in her eyes, how deeply I had disappointed her.

  “Let’s just go,” Stevie said to Yael, pushing back her chair.

  Yael leaned across the table toward me and said so low so that only Stevie and I could hear her: “You’ll make a perfect A, Charlie. All you care about is yourself.”

  When they were gone, I marched angrily across the dining hall to the boys’ table. I slammed the cash box down on the tabletop, and Dalton stopped midconversation and looked up at me.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “What’s wrong, babe?” Dalton asked.

  “I want to know about the fish,” I said, lowering my voice. It was just Dalton and Crosby at the table. Leo was across the room talking to Mr. Davis, the junior class adviser. But still, I didn’t want to risk anybody’s overhearing.

  “What fish?” Dalton asked.

  “Dude,” Crosby chuckled, and nudged Dalton’s shoulder. “You remember. The fish in Little Miss Priss’s room? That was sick.”

  Dalton started to laugh. “Oh yeah, almost forgot about that.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why would you put a fish in Stevie and Yael’s room?”

  “To get that little bitch back after what she did to Drew at the disciplinary hearing,” Crosby said. “You don’t recommend expelling an A and just get off scot-free.

  “Yo, check it out,” Crosby went on, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He opened his photo album and scrolled through his pictures, and then held out the screen for me to see. “Fucking hi-lar-ious.”

  It wasn’t a fish, it was the fish—the one Leo and I had stolen from the Poseidon Fountain and hidden in the old prop room. It was lying in Stevie’s bed, half covered in a sheet, and written in what looked like blood were the words Snitching bitches will sleep with the fishes.

  “Is that blood?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Dalton said. “Look in its mouth.”

  I glanced at the gaping mouth of the fish, which had been stuffed with what looked like—

  “Do not tell me those are used tampons,” I said.

  “That smell was rank,” Crosby said, still laughing.

  My stomach twisted. “Why would you do something like that?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you ever seen The Godfather?” Crosby asked, looking incredulous. “It’s a classic.”

  “Relax,” Dalton said, reaching out and grabbing my hand because he could tell that I was upset. “It was just a joke. You have to admit, Stevie is kind of tightly wound. We were just having some fun.”

  “Stevie can be . . . neurotic at times,” I said. “But she’s my friend.” And she didn’t deserve that.

  “Your friend?” Dalton said. “When’s the last time you two even hung out?”

  His question was like a slap in the face. I didn’t have a retort, because he was right. I hadn’t hung out with Stevie since Drew was expelled, and even before that, we hadn’t spent that much time together since Dalton and I became a thing and I had become involved in the A’s.

  “Sometimes you outgrow people,” Dalton said. “And usually for a reason.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, drawing back.

  “Come on, Charlie,” Dalton said. “Stevie Sorantos? Do I really have to spell it o
ut?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

  Dalton sighed and turned back toward the table. I saw him roll his eyes at Crosby. “Don’t be so dramatic, Charlie,” Dalton said. “The whole thing was a joke.”

  “Well, I’m not laughing,” I said. I grabbed my bag from the table and slung it over my shoulder before I marched away.

  “Where’s she going?” I heard Leo ask as he returned to the table.

  “To find her sense of humor,” Crosby said.

  In the library later that evening, I sat at one of the study tables with Finn, a score of old newspapers and yearbooks spread out around us. We were doing research to write our article on the story behind Knollwood’s ghost, which was due that Friday. It would go into this year’s last edition of the Chronicle, but to tell the truth, I was having a hard time concentrating. I was still reeling from my fight with Dalton and my altercation with Stevie and Yael, and the very last thing I wanted to be doing was writing a false article on the death of a boy that my father was involved in. Somehow, on top of everything else, I had to juggle keeping the story I knew out of the story I was telling. I couldn’t slip up and put in some detail that wasn’t in the newspaper accounts or the yearbook and open a whole other can of worms.

  “Why are all ghost stories morality tales?” Finn asked, flipping through an old yearbook.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Jake—he seemed like this Knollwood golden boy,” Finn said. “Star of the tennis team, on the student council, popular, good-looking, successful, et cetera. Seems like he had it all, and then one day he cheats and falls from grace and becomes ever after this paradigm of failure that hangs over campus. It’s like he’s this specter of doom warning you what will happen if you stray outside the lines. Hence, morality tale.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” I said. My phone vibrated in my purse and I pulled it out. I had two missed calls from Dalton and one text message (Where r u?), and a slew of texts from Greyson.

  Greyson: I’m sry I screwed things up for you. I just want to know that you’re ok. Plz text back.