“I’ll call a car.” I move to the door. “I can wait out on the porch.”
“Hold up, okay,” he says, and like a fool, I do. It’s the caramel and cinnamon thing he’s got going on, plus probably his way with chicken shawarma. A lot to resist. He stands, approaches me cautiously. “I’ll tell you everything, lay it all out, and then, I guess, it’s up to you to say yes or no.”
“Yes or no?” I give him my feistiest glare. Wrist control, I think. The power of boo. If I have to, I know I can get myself out of here.
He opens the laptop, and the monitors light up again. After a few taps, I see the spreadsheets.
He points to the screen on the left. “This is the class of 2023, a to z. The ones on academic or athletic scholarships are highlighted in yellow.” He points to the middle rainbow-coded table. “This is my available pool of freelancers—sophomores, juniors, seniors. Some working on advanced degrees. The ones shaded in pink can take your English Comp I or II for you and earn you a ninety or above. Purples, the same for any core history class, including tech and civ. Greens do core social sciences and Core Science Sequence I and II. Brown, any math.”
“And the screen on the end?” That one is different; it has a graphic of outer space behind all the rows and rows of text.
“Oh.” He looks super flustered and clicks off the monitor. “That’s Eve Online. My fleet data.”
I laugh in spite of my nerves. “And that’s the screen you’re embarrassed for me to see?”
He flushes. Inhales. “So here’s the deal. I started this company last year. I’m a junior . . . and change. Not enrolled this semester because fall is always busy. For a reasonable fee, I can have someone—a surrogate—take one or more of your core freshman classes, freeing you up for endeavors that make better use of your time.”
I blink slowly, taking it in. I’m not sure exactly what he’s talking about, but it sure sounds an awful lot like cheating.
“Some kids’ majors are just total grinds, right? And their parents have no idea that if they actually finish it in the four years required, they’ll wind up drooling in a drain ditch somewhere or jumping off the roof of Haley Center. So they can take additional classes and get ahead without stressing so much. And then there are some kids, the really brilliant ones, who are already being pursued by top companies. They use the time to freelance because they’re gonna make way more than what they pay me. And then there are the rest.”
“The rest?”
“They just want to get stoned all semester.”
“So which category do I fall into? Because obviously you’ve heard of Jax. And you know who my parents are.”
He scratches his jaw, then plants his hands on his hips. For some weird reason, it makes me think of my dad.
“I mean, I’ve heard of them, yes,” he says.
“You said you memorized everything about me. Well, surely you know that, along with being awarded a four-year full ride from National Women in STEM, my parents created Jax.”
“I know. But our recruiting lists are just educated guesses about who might be interested. I didn’t know which category you fell into. If you fell into any of them.” His eyes meet mine. “You seemed like somebody who really liked school.”
I move closer to the monitors, studying the columns. There are scores of names, reams of student ID numbers, phone numbers, class locations, and teachers. And there’s a final column labeled Tiger Card. So the guy has to provide fake student ID cards or apps or however he does it, on top of everything else. This operation makes the Russian mob look like kindergarten.
But, honestly? In an odd way, it kind of excites me. The same way downloading that spyware on the anonymous Jax user excited me. This is not the kind of person I used to be—sneaking and conniving—but, I don’t know, things change, I guess. I mean look at how everything’s changed since Dad died. Why shouldn’t I change too?
“How much do you charge?” I ask.
“That’s not why I asked you over here, Shorie. For real.”
“But you were planning to, eventually. Run into me at lunch somewhere, or a party. Right?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
I think of Mom, stretched out on a chaise on the beach, drinking some kind of health smoothie. Rhys is definitely the kind of person she’d be intrigued by. And, putting aside the illegal aspect of what he’s doing, she’d definitely want to hear about his business. She never passes up opportunities to hear about innovative ideas.
I take a deep breath and lock eyes with him, Mom style. “So pitch me the deal.”
Then my phone chimes, alerting me of a notification from the spyware I installed. I’ve received my first screenshot from Mr. or Mrs. 323a456-a97e-12d3-b654-829625410000’s Jax account. Holy smokes.
“One second,” I say to Rhys, and click on the alert, holding my breath. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve gotten three of them. The first is a private message, sent to the monitored account from a user who’s named his profile “Yours.”
I miss you. Thinking of you naked.
And the reply from my anonymous friend, Don’t message me here.
Ew. I make a face then turn away from Rhys so I can think. Yours has to be a guy; a girl wouldn’t send a message like that, would she? Naked messages typically originate from guys, I think. Which leads me to believe my anonymous user is probably a female.
On the other hand, I could be basing this on a false assumption—a stereotype I’ve derived from my own prejudices. What if girls text guys that they’re picturing them naked all the time, and I’m the weirdo who’s never heard about it? It wouldn’t surprise me. Half the time, I feel like a runtime error in human form.
I check out the second screenshot, the allotment balances, which include categories like housing, insurance, and debt reduction. So, she’s older. An adult, with monthly budget categories that total roughly fifteen thousand dollars. Pretty well-off individual, this Ms. X. In the top 5 percent, easy. Everything else looks pretty normal.
I move on to the next picture, another screenshot of the allotments.
“Holy shit,” I croak.
“What?” Rhys asks.
I’d almost forgotten that I was standing in a cute guy’s room. “Uh, just an unexpected email. Hold on.”
I study the shot again. From a mere thirty minutes earlier, the allotments have all gone up, each category’s balance having risen substantially. I do the math. Roughly $162,000 just got dumped into this person’s account.
My brain is clicking away, moving the facts around, considering alternatives. Ms. X doesn’t want her sext buddy to contact her over Jax. Probably because she’s meddling in Jax’s servers anonymously without an admin identifier, fixing a weird-looking deadlock that I’ve never encountered in all my years of shadowing Dad. There’s something going on with this account, that’s for damn sure. Something illegal, maybe.
A brand-new thought occurs to me, something I’ve never considered, not once in my whole hardworking, straight-arrow, do-what-you’re-told life: Sometimes breaking the rules isn’t just for fun. Sometimes it’s an absolutely, utterly essential move so you can find other rule breakers.
And that’s my responsibility, isn’t it, while my mother’s gone? One greater than going to class or making good grades or meeting cute guys. To find out who’s messing around with Jax?
I click off my phone and turn back to Rhys, who’s fiddling with his keyboard. “So how much?” I say.
“What?”
“How much would you charge me if I wanted a surrogate to take all five of my fall semester classes?” I’m thinking fast here. It’s going to take time to track down the journal and to monitor the activity on this Ms. X’s account. Time to figure out how all these elements fit together, if they fit together at all. And Rhys happens to be someone who can give me that time.
“All five?” he says. “Even Intro to Engineering?”
“Yes.”
“Six hundred and fifty per class, plus five hundred for the
new Tiger Card, that’s—”
“Thirty-seven fifty. How do you take payment?”
“Cash. But classes start in three days—”
“What? Is it too late?”
“No,” he says slowly. “No. I have a lot of people on call.” He hesitates. “Do you want to get out of here?”
I smile.
19
ERIN
The lobby’s changed colors. It’s now a soft twilight lavender, and there’s not a soul in sight. The Filipino woman leads us beside the rippling indoor stream and toward the back.
A series of columned arches opens up into a large wood-paneled room scattered with round tables. The only sound is the muted clink of cutlery against china. About thirty or so women, dressed in the Hidden Sands outfit, have already started the meal. Heads down, they all chew in silence. Deirdre and I exchange glances.
“Bon appétit,” the Filipino woman says and leaves us.
At the buffet, we heap salad, a vegetarian couscous concoction, and grilled fish onto plates monogrammed with a gold HS, then sit at a table with three other women.
“Hi,” I say, nodding all around. The women jerk up their heads and stare. Deirdre bursts into laughter.
Bang!
We look up to see a tall, red-cheeked woman, dressed in chef’s whites, standing at our table. She’s just thwacked the table with a huge metal cooking spoon. Her eyes narrow at Deirdre.
“Honor the food,” she says. “Engage all the senses as you eat. Be mindful. Start with the salad. Small bites, ten chews before swallowing. At the bell, move on to the entrée.”
A laugh wants to bubble out of me, but at the woman’s stern look, I stifle it.
“No talking,” she repeats, and spins on her heel.
“I’m calling that one Aunt Lydia.” Deirdre shoves a mountainous bite of couscous into her mouth, chews loudly a couple of times, and then swallows it down.
From the lavender glow of the main reception area, a woman appears beneath the arch. Her gaze sweeps over the room; then she spots us and strides toward our table. Up close I see that she’s young, closer to Shorie’s age than mine. She stops at our table.
“Hello.” She has a cherub’s face, sunny and makeup free. Her white-blonde hair is woven in a complex system of braids forming a crown around her head. Her nose is just pert enough to give her a childlike, innocent look. She’s wearing the same thing as Deirdre and me—the pajama pants from heaven, tank, and cardigan. Underneath she’s got a knockout body.
She smiles warmly at us. “Newcomers, would you follow me, please?”
We leave our plates, and outside in the shadowy reception area, she clasps my hand in hers. “Erin Gaines, it’s such a pleasure to finally meet you. I heard you arrived later this afternoon, after the morning orientation. I’m Antonia Erdman, the owner of Hidden Sands.” She glances at Deirdre. “And Ms. Galliani, of course. So happy to have you both here.”
In the lavender light, the woman looks like a teenager. It seems hard to reconcile that somebody so young could possibly own a huge resort like this. But of course, as Grigore said, her wealthy father gave the place to her. A playhouse to keep the princess occupied. Must be nice.
Antonia sneaks a glance into the dining hall, then tilts her head in the other direction. “Would you two like to come back to my office and eat with me? Where we can talk in private?”
“Absolutely,” Deirdre says.
“Sure,” I say.
In a few minutes, we’re through the lobby and down another shadowy corridor that leads us to Antonia’s office. The space is expansive, all blond wood and Hidden Sands White and filled with expensive modern furniture. At one end of a floating credenza sits a tidy collection of bottles—high-quality scotch, rye, and bourbon, ringed by a set of crystal tumblers. I almost do a double take. A rather unexpected sight in the office of the owner of a rehabilitation center.
We sit on either side of an impressive acrylic-and-wood structure that looks more like a piece of art than a desk, and I examine the room. A cluster of silver-framed photos sits on the credenza behind her desk—the Erdman family on a sailboat, and the elder Erdman, about Arch’s age from the looks of it, and his gorgeous, much younger, blonde wife at a formal event. There’s also a photo of teenage Antonia, arm in arm with another teenager, a tall boy in sunglasses and a blue baseball cap.
I check out the walls. A series of four small paintings hangs on one wall. Jagged black slashes of paint, cut with random splotches of gold and pink.
“You’re familiar with Tachism?” Antonia asks.
I shake my head. “Not really.”
“Oh, you should look into it. It’s such an unbridled expression of freedom.”
A spectacularly good-looking young man (of course) delivers a stack of silver trays. I’m starving, and the meal looks like a delicious departure from the rabbit food they were serving in the dining room. Rare filet mignon, mashed potatoes, asparagus drizzled with hollandaise. Dessert is some kind of complicated fruit parfait. I try not to shove it in my face all at once, but by the time I’m halfway through the potatoes, I look up and notice that Antonia is watching me.
I send her a sheepish smile. “I guess I was hungrier than I thought.”
“No, that’s great. Go for it.” She nods at me. “I wholeheartedly approve of the female appetite, in every way.”
Okay.
“What do you think so far? Of Hidden Sands?” She’s directing the question at me.
“I think it’s amazing. I just . . .”
Antonia smiles encouragingly. “Go ahead. Say it.”
Where to start? The bizarrely attractive staff? The grossly misleading brochure? The ever-so-slightly threatening private lecture happening in the spa? If I’m being honest, I want explanations for all of it, but I know better. This woman holds my immediate future in her hands. I need to keep things friendly.
“I’m a little surprised that somebody so young owns all this,” I say.
Antonia’s bright expression doesn’t waver. “Yes. A lot of people look down on me because I didn’t earn my position the bootstrap way, the way they like their one percent to get rich, but I can’t help that. Caring what other people think is the fastest way to get yourself stuck. And what I lack in years I’ve made up for in personal experience. I struggled with addiction for a couple of years, when I was younger. Got into some trouble and spent some time in juvenile detention.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I learned so much through the whole experience. That’s why I keep those liquor bottles out. Every day those bottles and I fight a battle. And every day I win.”
Not exactly your conventional twelve-step program, I think. And maybe unwise, having alcohol sitting out in the open like this in a place swarming with addicts. But it’s not a mistake. Antonia Erdman may be young, but she strikes me as being far from careless.
“My addiction gives me a certain level of understanding of human nature,” Antonia continues. “The tendency we have to use people. To gain power over others in our fight for survival.”
She pushes aside her plate, the steak and potatoes untouched. She digs a spoon into her parfait, slides it into her mouth, licks it. “My father inherited a boutique hotel company from his father, and back in 1983, he bought this place. It was his favorite because it was so isolated. So pristine. He ran it personally for many years, then . . . well, after I ran into a little bit of trouble—for the third or fourth or fifth time—he decided I needed something to keep me busy, and he turned it over to me.” She practically glimmers with pride. “I expanded the program far beyond what my father ever expected. Hidden Sands is one of Erdman International’s highest-earning assets.”
“It’s a beautiful place,” I say. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s why I call it a restoration facility rather than a rehab. We have traditional rehab services for those who require them, but truthfully, we’re here for anyone, at any point in their life. F
or any reason whatsoever. You choose your poison. So to speak.” She grins. “I know you won’t have your official tours until tomorrow, but in the meantime, is there anything you’d like to ask? Anything you’re curious about?”
“My concierge’s relationship status,” Deirdre says.
“Actually, yes,” I cut in. “Who were those women who came in earlier, into the shower? They looked really . . . beat up.”
Antonia dips her spoon into her parfait again. “Ah, yes. They’re our latest L’Élu group. Our wilderness survival experience. After a certain number of days at Hidden Sands—enough time to assess if you’re ready—you partake in the experience.”
“One of them was bleeding.”
“It can be an intensely challenging experience. Accidents happen.”
“Can we do something else?” Deirdre asks. “Naked yoga for a week?”
“No. Everyone has to complete a L’Élu at the end of their stay to officially graduate from the program.”
I lean forward. “You said ‘a certain number of days.’ Does that mean we could get out of here sooner than a month?”
“Well, it all comes down to satisfying the family’s request and occasionally a court order, but, all things being equal, yes. A few women who really want to dig into their recovery can attempt one sooner to try for early release.”
Early release. The words ring out like the chime of a church bell. I hadn’t realized that was a possibility, but now my head pulses with images: An early flight from Miami to Birmingham, the quick drive down to Auburn. A dinner out with Shorie, during which I apologize for being Mom in absentia for the past several months and invite her to tell me exactly how she feels. Ben too. Maybe not a dinner, though. A talk at the office.
The point is, with both of them, I would own up to my lack of self-awareness and fragility in the wake of Perry’s death. I would apologize—thoroughly and completely—for all my failures.
Swear to do better. To be better . . .
Beside me, Deirdre groans softly and pushes her tray back. Antonia leans forward, a look of concern on her face. “Deirdre?”
Until the Day I Die Page 10