Читать книгу The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant - Joanna Wiebe - Страница 10
ОглавлениеEVEN AS NIGHT FALLS, THICK FOG STILL DRAPES THE island like the whole world’s sadness has been sucked into this one spot and manifested as a permanent damp mist, which is turning light pink with the fading light of dusk.
I’m about to spend the school year in this dreary place, but it’s not the weather I mind. I’m already getting used to it, almost as if I should have been born on the East Coast. I’ve always made my fun among the shadows, lived my life under a heavy cloud of mourning. This fog? This isolated island? This is nothing.
It’s the people that’ll take some getting used to.
Like Villicus, who, I can’t help noticing, acts like he’s running a reform school, not a prestigious prep school. And Teddy, who has spent the evening knocking on my bedroom door, sticking his pimply face in, assessing my activities, and reminding me that we’ll determine my PT before bed. During the World’s Most Uncomfortable Dinner—just Teddy, Gigi, me, and yippy Skippy—Teddy asks how my parents met, how we responded when my mom was first diagnosed bipolar, how much my dad knows about his clients at the funeral home. Pushing away his plate after just two bites, he schedules my first bi-weekly call with my dad for this Friday. All the while, Gigi just looks on uncomfortably, as if she is reconsidering her decision to let me and my Guardian stay. (Can’t say I blame her.) And Skippy—I thought that dog hated me! But Skippy barks at Teddy with such force and for so long, he actually loses his voice. It’s only when Gigi turns in early, a shaking Skippy under her arm, that I feel calm for the first time in hours.
Until Teddy comes knocking on my bedroom door.
“We must get to the matter of your prosperitas thema,” he says as he enters my room and looks slowly around. His voice squeaks often, like he’s still going through puberty. “We shall declare and document it right now.”
“Right now? Do you think you know me well enough to make a call like this already?”
“It specifically says in my Apprentice Guide that the subject’s PT must be declared within twenty-four hours of arrival on the island.”
“You’re an apprentice?” My sucky, creepy Guardian doesn’t even have any experience?
“Never mind that. Stand and face me.”
I’ve barely risen from my chair when Teddy scoops my hands into his clammy mitts. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“So I may proceed with the reading.”
“The reading?”
Teddy’s reply is a cold glare. “Would you like to see these steps outlined in my guide?”
Reluctantly, I close my eyes. The problem with closing my eyes, though, is that it heightens my other senses—so, all at once, I can hear Teddy breathing loudly through his mouth, and I can feel the damp milkiness of his too-warm hands. He starts humming, and I open one eye a little to find him concentrating with his eyes closed. Like he’s meditating.
“Close your eyes,” he commands without opening his.
His fingers squeeze mine. I watch his thick, overgrown fingernails press deep into my palms, making me wince. As Teddy repeats his command, I glance at the Zin mansion lit by twilight beyond my window and allow myself to think not of Teddy but of Ben. Pretending Teddy is someone else—someone who I already recognize as the secret crush of my junior year—is the only way to get through this. I snap my eyelids shut and visualize Ben’s thick hair, piercing eyes, and crinkle-nosed grin.
Moments pass like this. I’ve never had a reading done, but they’re common enough where I come from that this isn’t completely absurd. Just semi-absurd.
All at once, though, a shudder overtakes my body, and I’m caught off-guard by the strongest sensation of being not entirely myself any longer—of being invaded by some sour presence that lumbers its way around under my skin.
“Wait,” I begin, but my voice catches in my throat.
I twitch involuntarily, as if my body is shaking out an intruder.
It’s as though Teddy’s reaching into my soul, and my soul is trying to shove him out. But that’s impossible. Teddy is just a guy. The effect, the unnerving sense of having company under my own skin, can only be the result of some manipulated pressure point on my hands.
“Remain absolutely still, Miss Merchant,” Teddy warns.
Keeping still is the last thing on my mind. A wave of nausea runs over me, and I suck my tongue to avoid getting sick right there on the creaking wooden floors, squeeze my eyes shut tighter, and tell myself to breathe. What’s happening? Moments creep by. The sense that this might never end washes over me.
But still I stand, motionless, doing as I’m told, finally realizing that this—whatever this is—is the manner by which all students have their PTs selected. And I, like everyone else, am expected to stand quietly while I’m mysteriously, telepathically prodded.
Opening my eyes during a brief moment of calmness, I watch Teddy’s long head rumble on his neck, teetering and bouncing like a bobble on the end of a radio antenna; his eyes are still closed. My stomach is once again on the brink. My skin feels tighter every second. And the idea, the absurd notion that Teddy could somehow be penetrating my soul, my aura, whatever you want to call it—that idea is flipping over and over in my mind. Without a resolution. My brain tells me it’s impossible. My body makes a shockingly compelling argument against my brain.
“Yes.” Teddy’s tongue slithers. His tone is peril personified, but I’m glad for the noise, for the promise of this all being over soon. “I see it. It’s you. I see your PT.”
See my PT?
“Your soul is very old yet invigorated. It is…so seductive.”
“Gross.”
“Hush now. A shadow hovers over you.”
With a sharp, unexpected gasp, Teddy suddenly lifts my hands high in the air. My eyelids pop open. His eyes flash wide, glowing oddly, bloodshot beyond repair as his gaze fuses with mine. Briefly, in that moment, I feel, in spite of myself, as if our souls are real, as if our souls are touching each other, as if I can see his and—to my great surprise—it’s not all dark. But then, without warning, he whips my arms down. Hard. So hard, I hear a snap, and my shoulders feel like they’ve popped right out of their sockets as he releases me.
With a howl of shock and pain, I hobble away. I balance myself after a spell of stumbling and lean against the foot of my bed, rubbing one shoulder, then the other. The only consolation, and it is a significant one, is that I feel like myself once again, even if I’m struggling to catch my breath, even if a dull creaminess coats my tongue.
“I have seen your PT. You have in your aura a tendency toward—” Teddy hesitates, standing in the midst of a great, long, exaggerated pause “—seduction.”
I collapse against the bed and, baffled by the whole experience, start laughing. “Are you kidding me?”
“Miss Merchant,” Teddy says, holding his hands up, “I assure you that your spirit does, in fact, lean toward a hyper-sexualized state.”
“Or you wish it would,” I counter, glaring up at him as the smile leaves my face. “If my PT were to sleep my way to the top, or whatever it is you have in mind, then tell me, dear Teddy, how would you grade me on that?”
He flinches. “You can’t be suggesting…”
“Having your way with me here? Nightly stripteases in your bedroom, Teddy? Is that close to what you were thinking?”
“That would be an abuse of power! I would never!”
“I’ll have you know that my uniform is as tight as it is because someone got my measurements wrong!” I get to my feet, wincing at the pain, and stride to the top of the stairs, gesturing for him to leave the attic. “I won’t sign anything that says that’s my PT. In fact, maybe I’m not interested in the Big V after all. Maybe I’ll be just like Pilot and turn my back on this idiotic race.”
“Wait!” Teddy cries, coming after me. “You need to do this, Anne.” His expression is softer—almost kind—as he looks at me now. “There was something else in your aura.”
“Surprise, surprise. What is it?”
“I would encourage you to choose the one I mentioned, though. It is your greatest strength. There are many ways to use your sexuality to your advantage. It doesn’t have to be as obvious as you might think.”
“That’s BS. What was the other one? Tell me.”
Reluctantly, Teddy nods. “It is because you are an artist that this is in you at all,” he stammers, which, in combination with his thick accent, makes him that much harder to understand. “But I warn you that, although you are an artist in this life, you may not have been in other lives. Your soul has spent much longer in the role of the seductress than the artist.”
“Teddy! Just tell me.”
“Your alternative PT, Miss Merchant, is that you will succeed in life by looking closer. Beyond the surface. By asking questions and never accepting things at face value.”
“Looking closer?”
I can’t help but smile a little. It’s exactly right. I feel it immediately, and knowing that Teddy was able to land on this assessment of my strength—a strength that one art curator once commented on—makes me wonder, for the briefest moment, if he was actually somehow in my soul, reading it.
“This might only cause you trouble, Miss Merchant,” Teddy warns.
“It’s perfect. Let’s do it. What do I sign?”
“Very well.” Teddy’s voice shakes as he lifts the form to me. I scribble it down and turn to let him go.
“Not so fast,” he says. Turning back, I find him lifting a long, silvery needle from his case and holding it out to me.
I stare at it. “What’s that?”
“To seal the deal.”
“To what?”
“We seal our official forms with blood at Cania Christy. It’s in my guide.”
“You’re really funny tonight. But you should probably leave now.”
Teddy just holds the needle out to me.
“So we’re in the Middle Ages now?”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” Teddy says. “Signing in blood is a tradition of this school, a tradition that goes back generations.” He thrusts the needle at me.
If I was alone, I might actually pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming because, so far, life at Cania Christy feels like life in a bad dream, like life on some planet filled with probing aliens.
“Everyone does it,” Teddy states crossly. Classic that he would use the line teachers and parents have condemned for years.
“My signature isn’t enough?”
“Thou must bequeath it solemnly!” he cries finally. With his hands trembling, with a hysteric gleam in his eye, he stomps on the spot.
“Teddy, come on! I mean, aren’t I supposed to be questioning stuff? That’s my PT, right? If I just gave in, wouldn’t I be, like, in violation or something?”
Settling down, though his chest still heaves, he agrees. “I understand. Well done. But now that you’ve questioned it and learned that it is what you must do, you must do it.”
Mental note: my Guardian will make up the rules as we go.
“What we have here is a learning opportunity,” Teddy declares, taking my hand and pressing the soft pad of my fingertip. “Once you learn who’s in control, I’ll learn that you’re worth fighting for on graduation day.”
With the needle, he pricks my finger and squeezes a drop of my blood onto the lower corner of each form. I press my thumb into the crimson drop; as I pull away, I stare for a moment at the fingerprint I’ve left behind, at the lines that swirl around the center like the walls of some fiery tornado around its funnel, at the mark they use to identify criminals, not students. I look at the tiniest flecks that the lines of my fingerprint leave, and I think of how those ridges are designed to fire signals to the brain when a surface feels dangerously sharp, dangerously hot.
Not long after, Teddy heads to campus for an evening meeting of the Guardians, and, relieved to be alone, I bolt downstairs to the kitchen, where an old-school telephone—the rotary kind, black—clings to the wall. I need to talk to my dad. I need to know how much this place is costing him and if he has any idea he’s sent me to a place where creepy Guardian-people crawl into your soul and suggest you get by in life on your back.
I pick up the receiver for the phone. But there’s no dial tone. A quick glance shows me there’s no cord connecting the two pieces.
“Ten bucks says Teddy took the damn thing with him.”
Restless and still shaken by the PT exercise, I slide on my boots and Gigi’s big, stinky jacket and head out the front door into the night air.
There are two ways I could go: up-island to campus or down-island to the verboten village. Creeping over the grass under the twilight sky and onto the road, I look north at the endless stretch and then south through the haze to where a distant village I’m not supposed to enter sits in wait. Behind me, I can feel the presence of the Zin mansion, where the golden glow of warmly lit rooms fills just enough ornate windows to make me long for a life as pleasant for myself.
I turn left. And, emboldened by my “look closer” PT, walk toward the village.
Taking their cue from the cool weather, the leaves have started changing color. Spots of orange and violet spread through the woods on both sides of the road, their colors diluted by the gray air, which is crisp enough to turn my nose and fingertips red. Outside the village, I spy a craggy wooden sign that shows the population: 212.
My PT may have given me the push I needed to head in this direction, but it hasn’t empowered me to such an extent that I actually intend to go into the village. Given everything I’ve been told today, especially if I want to be valedictorian next year, that would be a career-limiting move worthy of detention, demerits, suspension, or whatever they do at Cania to punish disobedient students. Veering away from the village just as its old pale fishing shacks come into view, I head toward the flash of a lighthouse that passes through the woods on the west side of the island. On my way, I wander by a hillside spotted with enormous Cape Cod–style homes that are anything but what I expected the villagers to live in. These people are the inhabitants of an old whaling village, after all. They should live in shanties with dimly lit porches. They should have tattered clothes that reek of fish guts. And yet, judging by their homes, you’d think they were all millionaires.
“That’s not fair!” a man hollers suddenly. I can’t see him. He’s somewhere far ahead, on the other side of the woods.
For a moment, I worry he’s shouting at me, and I scramble away. But when it’s obvious he doesn’t know I’m here, I inch toward his voice, to the edge of the woods and to the top of a low cliff overlooking not only the vast, smooth ocean and the distant twinkling lights of the Kennebunkport coast but also the marina, which houses more mini-yachts than it seems to be built for. Standing on the dock below me, deep in a fiery conversation, are three men. Two I recognize instantly: Headmaster Villicus and the spectacularly handsome Dr. Zin. But I don’t know who the third man is. He’s Indian, and he looks truly angry—the kind of anger where you expect he might stomp on the spot while steam pours out of his ears.
Behind the trio, a sign warns visitors to report to Cania Christy or risk prosecution.
The men stand just a dozen yards away from me. At any moment, Villicus could look up and see me here, wandering the outskirts of the village like a prize moron, standing in the passing beam of the lighthouse. Sure, I live on the village side of the line, so I’d have an excuse if it came to that. But something tells me Villicus isn’t one for excuses.
I duck behind a tree. Shielded by its thick, furry trunk, which gives softly under my fingertips, I peek down.
“But Lord Featherly promised!” the Indian man, who has a strong Scottish accent, shouts. Unmistakably new to the world of the wealthy, he wears dark-wash jeans, a Gucci-print shirt—collar flipped up—and an enormous pink-gold watch that flashes as he throws out his arms, exasperated. “He said you’d take care of me, Dr. Zin. Or are you just this old freak’s lackey?”
“Lord Featherly has been loose with his information about this school,” Dr. Zin retorts coolly, his voice low and smooth like a cocoa-dusted truffle, like a deeper version of Ben’s. “And, allow me to remind you, he was in a different position than you are when he came to us, Manish.”
“A different position? My company went public last year. Public! How rich do I need to be to send my daughter here?”
“We are not talking about money,” Villicus interrupts. “You misunderstand the mandate of my institution.”
“I just want what you’re giving these kids,” Manish says, lowering his voice. I inch closer to hear more. “My wife and I want it for our little girl. A future. As I said, I’ll pay anything—”
“Our school starts in the ninth grade,” Dr. Zin explains. “Even if you had been invited and were not acting with such impropriety, your daughter would not qualify on age alone.”
“But her grades were exceptional. She could make a go of it as a freshman.” He looks wildly between the two powerful men. “Lord Featherly said something about special tuition. I can give you anything you want. What will it take?”
“Frankly, there’s nothing you could offer,” Dr. Zin says.
“Please,” Manish begs, dropping to his knees. He throws himself at Villicus’s feet and wraps his arms around his old brown shoes. “Please. If you are the man I’ve been told you are, you can do this.”
My eavesdropping is cut short when I hear leaves crunching behind me. My heart stops with a dull thump. My fingers claw into the tree bark. I close my eyes, and I freeze in place.
I’m sure I’ll turn around and see Teddy. If not him, then some wild animal’s about to maul me. I don’t know which worries me more.
“Man,” a girl says—and I promise, I nearly pee my pants. I suck my lips in to keep from screaming. “It’s hard to hear them when they whisper, isn’t it?”
Whipping around, I find a black-haired girl smiling at me as she lightly punts the kickstand on her bike. She tiptoes to my side, still grinning—she has braces—holds my arm, and peeks over my shoulder to spy on Villicus, Zin, and Manish.
“Oh, they look mad,” she giggles. “Who’s the rich idiot in the guido shirt? He looks almost as stupid as Villie.”
I’m too stunned to move. Questions about who this girl is set in quickly. She’s on this side of the line and she’s friendly—so she’s probably not from Cania. Not to mention that I’m sure I didn’t see her at orientation today.
“Stop staring at me. You’re missing the whole show,” she whispers, her gaze fixed on the entertainment below. “That guy’s laying it on thick. He’s actually begging!”
“You’re from the village.”
Her black eyes flick in my direction. “Yep. I guess you’d better run away from me now. And I’ll run away from you.” She chuckles quietly. “Stupid rules.”
Even still, I back away. My dad gave up way too much for me to compromise things now. As I back away, the girl turns to me. I’m taller than she is, but she’s got a toughness about her that makes her seem larger.
“Come on. Be nice—I’m nice,” she says. “Do you even know why the rules are what they are?”
I shake my head. Something about keeping things exclusive, but I don’t say that.
“Exactly. You only know what Villie tells you. I’ve lived here my whole life. I know the rules. So trust me when I say that I know they’re worth breaking. I know what I’m doing when I’m breaking them.”
“Which you are,” I say.
“Which you are, too. Or, what, did you miss that bright red line on the road back there? You had to cross it to get here, right?”
“I live on the village side of it.”
Leaning against the spot I’ve given up on the tree, she fits her fingers into the same rivets I held in the bark and glances over her shoulder at me. Her eyes twinkle, and her skin is olive-toned, which makes her teeth, behind the metal, look very white. Unlike the kids at Cania, she’s got a few blemishes, and her eyebrows are untamed.
“Oh,” she says, “you’re you. You’re the new kid. The weird one.”
“The weird one?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Aren’t you?” I fire back. “Only teen in a creepy village. Kinda weird.”
Surprisingly, she beams. “I know, right? It’s not just weird. It blows.”
Manish’s voice booms out suddenly, and I sidle next to the girl to watch the events unfolding below.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” Manish hollers.
“It’s imperative,” Dr. Zin quickly cautions Manish, “that you keep this quiet.”
“Impossible! Your policies are ageist and exclusionary. If my money can’t get her in here, my money will shut this place down.”
With that, Manish grabs his jacket and storms to a speedboat at the end of the dock. As he does, Villicus flicks his eyes up to exactly where the girl and I are standing—Oh, crap! Freaked, we both stumble backward, falling out of his sight to the mossy, crunchy earth. I hear her squeal, but I don’t make a peep—because my heart’s temporarily stopped.
Hushed, we wait motionlessly and soundlessly for the voices below to go away.
“He saw me,” I finally whisper.
“He saw me for sure,” she says, clutching her chest. “But I don’t think he saw you. The tree shielded you. And I’m allowed to be here.”
“Are you sure? If he saw us together, I think I could get in serious trouble.”
“We both could,” she adds, but it’s obvious she’s enjoying the excitement of the moment. She tears her hand away from her chest and sticks it out at me. Her white ceramic watch makes a clinking noise against her diamond tennis bracelet. “I’m Molly. Molly Watso.”
“Anne Merchant.” I take it and shake. A speedboat starts down at the dock. “So, what did you mean, I’m the weird one?”
“This is a small island, which is even worse than a small town.” Rolling toward me, Molly chuckles. “I’d heard there was a new girl who was supposed to be different from the others. But don’t worry. You’re the least weird one up at that place, trust me.”
“What makes them weird? That they’re all flawless? Or that they’re the evil offspring of, like, Rockefellers?”
“Both!” Molly laughs again. “So you go into the village when you’re not supposed to. And you live with Gigi. What’s your deal? Just a sucker for punishment?”
I get to my feet, dusting my hand-me-down jeans. Molly follows and hops on her bike.
“It gets worse,” I confess easily. There’s something calming and, well, normal about Molly Watso. “We’ve got these Guardians assigned to us. And mine—Teddy—is actually living with me at Gigi’s. It’s pretty close quarters. I had to get out for some air.”
“Damn. I figured maybe Gigi would be your Guardian, but she’s from the village, so that wouldn’t work. Not really cut out for critiquing you twenty-four-seven.” She arches her eyebrow. “But looks like your Teddy Bear isn’t doing a very good job with that either.”
We fall into a stroll through the woods. I’m heading back to the main road, and I imagine she’s going to one of those enormous homes on the hillside.
“Hey, you know what the punishment is for us even talking, right?” she asks.
“Is it bad?”
“I’ll take that as a no,” she says, grinning. “You could be expelled.”
“And what’d happen to you?”
“The worst.”
“The worst?” I repeat. “The only thing worse than getting expelled from Cania might be having to go there in the first place.” I expect her to laugh, but she doesn’t.
“Exactly.”
“I’m kidding,” I say. “So, what would your punishment be?”
“Exactly what you said.” She stops walking as we near the road. “I’d be forced to attend Cania.”
“Attending Cania is a punishment? So, what? Is this place some sort of reform school?” I guess. Then another thought pops into my head. “Or, like, a mental institution for rich kids? Everyone there seems slightly off.”
I don’t add my concern: that my dad, after I fell into my depression over my mom’s death, might have tricked me into coming here under the guise of starting fresh.
Suddenly, a gunshot—at least, I think that’s what it is—tears through the air, bolting from the marina, ricocheting its echo, and sending me and Molly jumping out of our skin.
Molly nearly falls off her bike.
Another gunshot.
“Holy jeez,” she stammers, balancing herself again. “This island is getting crazier every second.” She skids away and calls back over her shoulder. “You okay getting home?”
Stunned, I think I mumble a yes. In a flash, Molly races to the hillside, shaking her head and shouting that she’ll see me later. I can’t believe she has the capacity to move. I’m frozen in place. By the time I’m able to move again, I stumble out of the woods and duck just as a Harley holding Dr. Zin and Villicus zooms by on the road below. It’s not until they pass and I regain my composure that the sound Molly and I heard makes better sense.
“Not a gunshot,” I assure myself. “It was the bike backfiring. Had to be.”
That has to be it. Because the alternative is not something I can let enter my mind. Not if I’m going to keep my sanity here, in a place that, the more I think of it, could very well be a high-end asylum.
Back at Gigi’s, under the dim glow of candles on my bedside table, my heart has stopped racing and I’m flipping through my student handbook, looking for clubs to join. It’s occurred to me that the dreariness outside, the oddness of the day, my jet lag, and my strange encounter with Molly might have made me a little jumpier than usual. Those shots we heard? I’ve dreamt up a million more explanations. Could have been barking sea lions. Or wailing loons. Or someone scattering gulls. Or a starting gun.
“Yeah, a starting gun,” I tell myself. “Starting gun for a running club.”
Doesn’t matter that, if the list of clubs in this handbook is exhaustive, there’s no running club here. There is, however, every other club known to man. A Model UN. Something called the Pil-At-Ease Club. Economics Club. Glee Club. The Social Committee. Swimming. Tennis. Mathletes. Everything.
What will I sign up for?
“What would Mr. Ben Zin be likely to take?” I ask myself and just as quickly fling the handbook down. “Why am I even thinking about the snobby son of some gun-firing power tripper?”
Just before I blow out the candles, I hear a motorbike in the Zins’ driveway, and I jump out of bed, flying to the window in time to see not a Harley but a yellow Ducati disappear under the Zins’ porte cochere. For what feels like hours, I stand in the shadows, looking out my window, watching their house, watching lights fill and disappear from one window after the other.
In reality, I know guys like Ben don’t associate with girls like me. He’s a gorgeous senior; I’m a lowly junior. And I saw his reaction to my crooked smile. There’s no denying that. If his grades were poor, at least I could console myself that he might one day deign to discuss persistence in stochastic environments with me—but he’s set to get the Big V this year.
“Nothing could possibly interest Ben Zin in me.”
I turn to the small mirror on my dresser. And I rub my eyes.
It must be the candlelight. Or maybe there’s something in the water here that makes people look better than we otherwise would. Sure, I’m nowhere near as flawless as the other kids I encountered today, but I can’t help but notice that I don’t look quite as unfortunate as I normally do. Flattering light—that must be it.
Sweeping my hair away from my face and holding it high in a ponytail, I turn side to side to see my profile in the reflection. I look…hmm, not all that bad. It’s sort of like being introduced to myself, like my brain is temporarily allowing me a second chance to make a first impression. I definitely look more like my mom than I used to (a good thing). I can see similarities with her bone structure, her eyes, and her lips. Sure, I’ve got a blemish near my jawline, but I’m sixteen! I’m supposed to.
Gradually, I let my eyes fall below my neck, but it’s like this chore to get them there—to get them to my actual body, not just my face and hair, knowing that I’m about to check myself out. One part pathetic; one part intriguing.
Like a lot of girls, I guess, I’ve built an uncertain existence in the shadows of my most prominent flaws, which are the very qualities that make me different, which is only good on good days. But here I am now. Standing in my pajama shirt and undies. Tracing my fingertips over my collarbone in the dark. Dropping my arms to my side and letting my hand hover at the hem of my pajama shirt. Holding my breath, I lift it slowly. Take it off. And blush at my reflection. Because my body is so unrecognizable to me, it’s almost pornographic.
“Not bad,” I whisper, looking at myself as I never really have before. Something inside me stirs—not because I’m attracted to myself. It’s something else. It’s realizing, for the first time ever, that I may possess a teensy tiny bit of sexual power. It’s realizing, in spite of my will to succeed based on intelligence alone, that Teddy might not have been entirely crazy to suggest my body could be a strong asset for me.
There’s a knock at the door. I clasp my shirt to my chest and pray that Teddy doesn’t come marching up the stairs to find me like this.
“Annie? You awake?” Gigi loud-whispers. “My feet are killing me. Would you massage them?”
I don’t make a peep, and she finally pads back to her room. I slip my shirt back on and decide to force myself to sleep (because I’ll be joining Ornithology Club, which starts at 7:00 A.M., which is 4:00 A.M. back home, which will feel terrible tomorrow). I reach to draw my shade. And at that exact moment, just as I let my eyes fall on the Zin mansion for what I thought would be a nanosecond, I glimpse someone standing at a window there.
No, not someone. Two people.
I can see only their silhouettes, but it’s clear one is a man and the other a woman, and something tells me the man is not Dr. Zin. Too lean. Which means it’s Ben. With a girl. A girl who is reaching for him…not in a motherly way.
The air empties out of my room. Everything deflates at the unmistakable sight of Ben with some girl.
“Of course he has a girlfriend,” I sigh, drawing the shade. He was out with her tonight, and he brought her back to his place on that Ducati. “Of course.”
And just like that, everything I thought I saw in the mirror disappears like the candlelight I extinguish between my fingertips. As I get into bed, my new confidence, like a stream of smoke, floats away, rising to twist around the beams of the attic ceiling and, in the darkness, disappear. Just in time for my door to squeak open. Just in time for Teddy to tiptoe up the stairs, stand over me, and scribble something on his notepad.
