All These Beautiful Strangers

by Elizabeth Klehfoth

  I typed out a quick response. I was still pissed at him for what he had pulled with my father at Thanksgiving.

  Me: I’m fine. Plz leave me alone.

  I threw my phone back in my purse.

  “Well, I must have done something right today,” Finn said.

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Because the epitome of masculine beauty has made an appearance, and, if I’m not mistaken, he’s headed this way.”

  I turned my head and saw Dalton near the entrance, by the librarian’s desk. I whipped my head back around and picked up the book closest to me and buried my head in it, trying to shield myself from view. “Why do you think he’s headed this way?” I asked.

  Finn rolled his eyes. “Because you’re here, and if you hadn’t noticed, Dalton kind of follows you around.”

  “Do you think he saw me?” I asked, slouching down in my seat.

  Finn’s face split into an ear-to-ear grin, which gave me my answer.

  “There’s something about the way he walks that just gets me,” he said, leaning his chin onto the palm of his hand and staring unabashedly at what I was sure was the approaching figure of my boyfriend behind me. “It’s like the world is his runway. Do you think he’s had professional training?”

  “We’re kind of in a fight,” I said. “A big one.”

  Finn sighed. “The best part of my day is watching him in our Ethics and Morality seminar. He makes utilitarianism sound sexy.”

  “Do you think I have enough time to make a stealthy exit?” I asked, starting to gather my things.

  “No, but do you think you could introduce me?” Finn asked.

  “Finn,” I said.

  Finn shushed me and glanced down at his laptop screen, his ears growing noticeably red even in the dim library light. “Be nice,” Finn chastised me in a whisper. “He’s here.”

  I turned my head, and there was Dalton. He set a white to-go cup down on the table in front of me and gave me a hopeful smile.

  “I brought you a coffee,” Dalton said. “Bone-dry cappuccino with skim milk from the coffee cart outside the dining hall. Your favorite.”

  “Flowers would probably have been safer,” Finn said. “Caffeine is just going to give her more energy to devote to being pissed at you.”

  Dalton chuckled. “You’re probably right. Didn’t think of that.” He held out his hand to Finn. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dalton.”

  Finn eagerly took his hand. “Finn,” he said. “We actually have Ethics and Morality together.”

  “That class is the worst,” Dalton said.

  “Totally,” Finn said. “Terrible. I hate it.”

  I glared at Finn and mouthed, Traitor, at him.

  “I was hoping to maybe get a word with Charlie, if you don’t mind,” Dalton said.

  “Actually, Finn and I are in the middle of—” I started.

  “—saying goodbye,” Finn cut me off. “I’m going to go finish up the draft of our article. It was a pleasure to see—I mean meet—you, Dalton,” Finn said.

  “Likewise,” Dalton said.

  I glowered at Finn as he gathered up his things and left. Dalton sat down in the seat next to me and turned his chair so that he was fully facing me.

  “I know I’m probably supposed to already know this,” Dalton said. “But humor me anyway. Can you please explain to me why you’re so upset?”

  “Because of the fish,” I said.

  “Yes, but what about the fish exactly?”

  “One, you were really gross and mean to my friend,” I said, and I held up a hand before he could say anything. “And, yes, despite what you may think, Stevie is my friend—or was my friend, before your little fish prank.

  “And two, you used Leo and me to steal that fish. We did all the grunt work, and little did we know that that was going to be used to harass someone I care about. And that seems to be a pattern—the initiates taking all the risk and doing all the work and being kept completely in the dark on what it’s all for, and having to deal with the consequences if there’s fallout.”

  Dalton nodded, like he was really listening and considering what I had to say, which disarmed me a little, because I was ready to knock his head off, or go verbal blow for verbal blow.

  “Listen,” he said after a minute. “About the fish—if I had known you weren’t on the outs with Stevie, I wouldn’t have done that. And about the second thing—I know it’s frustrating right now, because it feels like you’re being left out of something. I felt exactly the same way when I was in your shoes, and I may have forgotten what that’s like a bit being on the other side of things. But trust me, once you get in, you’re all in. This—right now—is the hard part, and you’re almost through it. And once you get through it, all of this will feel worth it.”

  “Will it?” I asked. “Because right now, it seems like I’m doing a lot of grunt work for people’s elaborate pranks and revenge schemes, so that next year I can make someone else do the grunt work for my own elaborate pranks and revenge schemes, and that just isn’t looking worth it to me.”

  “I know it seems like we dick around a lot, and pull pranks and stuff,” Dalton said. “And yeah, we do that stuff. But that’s not what the A’s are really about.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No,” Dalton said. “It’s about . . . belonging to people who know you better than anybody. People who know your worst parts and stick by you.

  “I know Crosby and I seem really close now, and we are, but that never would have happened if not for the A’s and all the shit we went through during initiation,” Dalton said. “Now, Crosby, he’s like my brother. He’s family.”

  I thought about my father and his friends. How he’d always talked about his time at Knollwood as if it were some kind of mythical paradise, and the friends he had made there, and the good times and memories they shared. And it was true that many of the people who remained in my father’s life from high school were probably A’s.

  Dalton reached out and took my hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Charlie, the A’s isn’t about the two years we’re together at Knollwood. When you’re in the A’s—it’s for life. I hope—I really want—for you to be a part of that with me.”

  I bit my lip. I knew that he was right. Being in the A’s meant a lifetime of exclusivity. It meant power. It was a rare, special kind of bond. There was a reason why I had wanted so badly to be a part of it.

  But another part of me knew that the things Yael and Stevie had said about the A’s were also true. The A’s were self-entitled rich kids playing god. They took their pleasures at the expense of others with little compassion, empathy, or shame. At their best, the A’s were brazen and self-empowered and “carpe diem”; they saw what they wanted, and they took it without apology. At their worst, they were selfish and conceited and cruel.

  I knew I had to choose: in or out. I couldn’t have it both ways. But at the moment, I felt too inwardly divided to choose.

  So, I didn’t say anything. I just gave Dalton’s hand a little squeeze back and prayed he couldn’t feel my indecision in the gesture.

  Thirty-Nine

  Charlie Calloway

  2017

  I’d become one of those people I used to make snarky comments about straight to their faces—the people who show up hours before an event is supposed to start and help hang streamers from the ceiling. It was all Leo’s fault. He’d harassed me and Dalton into helping set up the silent auction for the Trustee Benefit Gala in the banquet hall on Saturday morning.

  “Thanks for coming,” Leo said, handing Dalton and me a clipboard that contained all the bidding forms for the silent auction.

  “I hate you,” I said.

  “It’s not that early,” Leo said.

  “Anything before noon on Saturday is early,” I said.

  Leo handed me his latte. “Here, for sustenance,” he said.

  I took a sip, but I was still feeling surly, and I doubted the caffeine would hel
p. It wasn’t really the getting-up-early thing that had me in a bad mood. It was that the last edition of the Knollwood Chronicle went to the printers tonight, and either I had to get the pictures of me and Mr. Andrews in there, or I had to prepare myself for the fallout of failing my last ticket. Not only would I not be an A, but Leo and I would have to brace ourselves for our public humiliation if the A’s released our pictures in retribution. Which, let’s be honest, they most likely would.

  It wasn’t even the execution of getting the pictures in the paper that bothered me. I had already figured that part out. Part of Finn’s grunt work as a freshman was that he had to deliver the flash drive with the final version of the Knollwood Chronicle from the newsroom to the printer by midnight the night it was due. Which meant that all I had to do was intercept Finn tonight between the newsroom and the printer, and switch out the real flash drive with an identical flash drive preloaded with my own story and scandalous photographs. My story would not only be front-page news, it would be the only news in the Knollwood Chronicle this week. That was, if I decided I wanted to go through with it.

  “Now, these are the bidding forms. The printouts with the descriptions and pictures of the auction items are on the tables over there,” Leo said, pointing. “You guys will just need to lay everything out. There’s also some decorations, tablecloths, et cetera, over there by Stevie, so feel free to grab some. Make everything look presentable.”

  “Got it,” Dalton said, way too cheerfully, beside me.

  “Thanks again,” Leo said before darting off to greet another set of volunteers.

  “So, uh, is your dad coming tonight?” Dalton asked as we set the auction forms down on the table and started to sort through things.

  “Yeah, he comes every year,” I said. “Why?”

  “Is he, uh, over what happened?” Dalton asked, looking uncomfortable and scratching the back of his neck.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You know, when he wanted to punch my face in at Thanksgiving because of the whole Board of Conquests thing?”

  “Oh,” I said. That hadn’t really crossed my mind lately with everything else that was going on. “We never really talked about it.”

  “You never talked about it?”

  “Talking isn’t really our thing,” I said. “I mean, I’m sure you’re still not his favorite person, but he’s not going to, like, assault you tonight or anything if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I guess that’s something,” Dalton said. “But I’d really like for your dad not to hate me. Usually I do a lot better with parents.”

  I was about to make some retort that maybe next time he might want to abstain from playing a piggish game of sex bingo with his friends, but when I looked up from the table, I saw Margot standing behind him. She was impeccably dressed in a Canada Goose parka and winter boots.

  “Charlie,” she said in greeting, rather icily.

  Well, she was obviously still upset over the whole Thanksgiving fiasco. I gave her a little nod of acknowledgment in response.

  “Mom, what are you doing here so early?” Dalton asked, turning and giving her a kiss on the cheek as she embraced him.

  “They won’t let me check into the hotel in Falls Church until three,” Margot said. “So I thought I’d surprise you and take you out for brunch.”

  “Oh,” Dalton said. “Well, I kind of promised Leo I’d help set up the silent auction. Maybe I could meet you somewhere in like an hour?”

  Margot frowned and tilted her wrist to check the time. The white pearl watch face with small, circle-cut yellow diamonds around the bezel caught my eye. It was the same watch I’d admired the first time I’d met Margot, in the city. I’d always liked yellow diamonds, partly because you didn’t come across them very often. My mother had had a canary diamond engagement ring. She’d take it off when she was gardening or washing the dishes and string it on a thin gold chain she wore around her neck, so that it hung over her heart. Sometimes when I’d sit on her lap as a little girl, she’d wiggle the ring off her finger and let me hold it, and I’d try threading it on my too-slender fingers. I used to marvel at the large emerald-cut diamond, which was such an unusual color. The color of daffodils and summer squash. The diamonds on Margot’s watch were exactly the same shade.

  But the unusual color of the diamonds on Margot’s watch was not the only thing that caught my eye. This close, I could see Margot’s watch was a ladies’ Oyster Perpetual Caliber 2235 model. I knew because I’d considered that same model when shopping for my own wristwatch last year for my sixteenth birthday. I’d eventually decided against it and chosen a vintage Rolex Bubbleback from circa 1933. The Oyster Perpetual model that Margot wore on her wrist was new. Rolex didn’t start manufacturing it until the late 1990s. And yet, in the city, when I’d asked Margot where she’d gotten it, she’d claimed it was an heirloom.

  “That’ll be too late,” Margot said. “Most places stop serving brunch at two. And I’m craving a mimosa.”

  “It’s fine,” I told Dalton, trying to keep my voice level. “Go have brunch with your mom. I can handle setting up.”

  “Are you sure?” Dalton asked. “I feel kinda bad.”

  “It’s a one-person job anyway and Leo roped me into it a while ago,” I said. “There’s no reason we should both have to suffer through it.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure?” Dalton asked.

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  He leaned in and gave me a peck on the forehead and I tried not to flinch at his touch. “You’re the best,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight?”

  “I’ll be here,” I said, and I gave him a weak smile.

  When they were both gone, I glanced around the room to make sure that no one was looking in my general direction and then sank behind the table.

  What. The. Hell?

  The suitcases in the basement were one thing. But the watch with the same unusual-color diamonds as my mother’s engagement ring? And Margot’s watch was not an heirloom, it was maybe a decade old at most. My mother’s ring, on the other hand, was an heirloom. It had belonged to my great-grandmother.

  I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

  I remembered the engagement notice Greyson had found in an old issue of the Times. Had my mother’s engagement ring once belonged to Margot? My stomach twisted. I felt like I was going to be sick.

  Keep it together, Calloway, I told myself. You have to keep your shit together.

  Now, more than ever, I couldn’t fall apart.

  I stood up straight and took a deep breath. I shook my head to clear it. I could do this. I could do this. But I couldn’t do it alone.

  I took out my phone and scrolled through my contacts. When I found the one I was looking for, I pressed the little phone icon next to the name. I put the phone to my ear and listened to the ringing on the other end, and then that familiar voice answered.

  “Hey,” I said. “I need your help.”

  My father picked me up at my dorm room at seven o’clock and we walked together, arm in arm, across campus. He wore a crisp black suit and silk tie under his winter coat, and I wore a midnight-blue A-line evening gown with a beaded bodice that my father had brought with him from the city. His assistant Rosie had picked it out for me. I also wore my mother’s old necklace, the one with the cheap crab pendant. Jake had given it to her, I was sure. According to the “In Memoriam” page in my dad’s old yearbook, Jake had been born in early July. He was a Cancer; the crab was his zodiac sign. My mother had held on to that necklace all of those years; Jake must have meant a great deal to her. I wore the necklace now as a kind of amulet. I wondered if my father recognized the necklace, but if he did, he said nothing.

  The lights from the banquet hall spilled onto the front lawn, and as we made our way up the stone steps, we stopped here and there to greet my father’s friends. It was the one event at Knollwood where the parents and alumni outnumbered the students.

&nbs
p; “Alistair, old man,” Matthew York said, grabbing my father’s arm. He was with his daughter Meryl. I didn’t really talk to Meryl, even though she was an A initiate, like me. She was quiet and kept to herself. She had a long, stern-looking face, and so I’d always assumed she was a little bit mean.

  “Haven’t seen you at the club lately,” Matthew York said to my father. “What’ve you been doing with yourself?”

  My father stopped to answer him and I gave his hand a little squeeze and mouthed that I would meet him inside. He nodded at me.

  “Teddy around?” I heard Matthew York ask my father.

  “Yes, Grier’s here, too,” my father answered. “My niece just applied for next year.”

  I checked my coat at the front door. Inside, the room was crowded with tables set for a grand three-course meal, women in evening gowns, and men in suits. In the middle of the room was the dance floor, and Headmaster Collins was in the center of it, finishing his welcome speech to the parents and alumni. The Trustee Benefit Gala always began with that speech, followed by cocktails and the silent auction, and ended with dinner and dancing. I spotted Uncle Teddy and Aunt Grier at the edge of the crowd and I walked over to them.

  “You clean up nice,” Uncle Teddy said.

  “Charlotte, it’s good to see you,” Aunt Grier said, and she gave me a curt smile. I gave her a perfunctory smile back. I’d always felt a certain distance between me and my aunt that I could never quite bridge. She was never cold, exactly—after all, she and Uncle Teddy had taken me into their home at one point, raised me and Seraphina alongside my cousins for two years. After hearing her interview in the PI’s files, I understood why it always felt like she was holding me at arm’s length. It probably didn’t help that I looked just like my mother, either.

  Aunt Grier’s clutch buzzed and she handed Uncle Teddy her glass of champagne.

  “It’s the sitter,” Aunt Grier said, glancing at the screen. “I’m going to take this outside. I’ll be right back.”

  When she was gone, Uncle Teddy took a sip of champagne from her glass and asked me, “Did you finish going through the files I sent?”