Page 4 of The Narrow

It would only be for one night. I have a very important meeting in the morning that I absolutely cannot miss.

I’ve barely sat down when there’s a knock at the door behind me, and gray-haired Edith Clarke enters, a manila folder in one hand. I catch a glimpse of the lettersWhion the tab, the rest of my name hidden under her hand.

“Edith, thank you for joining us,” Oster says. He puts his glasses on, and I resist the urge to fidget. He’s a big man, with short white hair and lively eyes. He was the youngest dean in Atwood’s history when he was hired, but that was nearly forty years ago, and now his face is lined with deep wrinkles, his scalp flecked with liver spots. I don’t know much about him other than the fact that he’s friends with Veronica’s parents.

“Am I in some kind of trouble?” I ask.

“Should you be?” he asks in turn, brows lifted.

“I know a trap when I hear one,” I reply, and he chuckles. But honestly, I can’t think of anything. Sure, I break a few rules here and there. But I’ve never done anything that required being summoned in front of the dean.

Mrs.Clarke has adjusted the other chair so she’s sitting off to the side. Suddenly, the significance of her presence hits me. Edith Clarke is the bursar—in charge of tuition and financial aid. I’ve never had to talk to her myself, but Ruth is on partial scholarship, and I’ve walked with her to Clarke’s office a few times over the years when she had to drop off a form or something.

“Miss White, I’m afraid we have a situation regarding your enrollment,” Oster says, drawing my attention back to him. His hands are neatly folded on the tabletop. I find myself staring at the hair on the back of his fingers. “Tuition must be paid in full before the first day of classes. Yours has not been paid, and despite repeated attempts, we have been unable to get in touch with your parents.”

My heart drops, and a sour taste floods my mouth. “It hasn’t been paid? At all?”

“I’m afraid not.”

I’m afraid, I’m afraid.He keeps saying that, but he isn’t afraid, is he? Sympathetic, yes. His voice is syrupy with that. But the fear here—it belongs to me. “What does that mean? What happens now?” I ask.

“My hope is that you can put us in touch with your parents,” Oster says. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

“Our policies are quite clear,” Mrs.Clarke adds. “If your tuition is not paid, you are not an enrolled student and you cannot stay in the dorms or attend classes.”

Oster looks at her sharply, but I’m grateful to her for just spelling it out. They’re saying I can’t stay here. I have to go home.

And I can’t go home.

“Miss White—Eden. If your family is experiencing some kind of financial hardship—”

I laugh. It’s a horrible, choked sound, and it makes them both wince. “No, we aren’t experiencing financial hardship,” I say. Though if you asked my parents, they might disagree.

Every few months someone posts a rich guy’s monthly budget to “prove” that they’re barely getting by, and the internet falls on their head. Who the hell spends a thousand dollars a month on wine, has a two-million-dollar house, and considers themselves poor?

My parents, that’s who.

I could break down our budget and set the internet on fire for a day, but I know it would only make my parents feel more victimized by the world.Don’t those people understand that these kinds of expenses are necessary for people like us?they’d squawk.

So no, we aren’t experiencing financial hardship, but I know exactly what’s happened. You’re not rich if you spend all your money, according to my parents, and they find so many ways to spend it. Normally there’s still enough left over to cover Atwood, but this year they’ve had Luke’s legal bills, dealing with his “slipup.”

Mom is in charge of the bills. She would have been the one to realize that the tuition money wasn’t there. And Mom, believing with all her little heart that if you ignore a problem, it will go away, just rearranged her reality so that “pay Eden’s tuition” was no longer a thing she had to think about. She wouldn’t tellDad—she wouldn’t want to get screamed at. She wouldn’t call the school because that could lead to conflict, too. She’d just wait and hope the money dropped out of the sky or the school forgot to collect.

“What are my options?” I ask. My throat tightens, but my words are steady.

Mr.Oster is silent a beat. “As I said, we can try to contact your parents again. But if they aren’t able to settle the balance, you’ll have to find other arrangements.”

“Tonight?” I say.

Mr.Oster shakes his head. “We’re not going to kick you out on the street. You can stay in the dorms for tonight and attend classes tomorrow while we sort this out. It’s Tuesday; I can give you through the weekend to get this handled.”

The weekend won’t be enough. You have to schedule in the time for Mom and Dad to yell at each other about whether to sell the Jaguar or take a chunk out of the retirement account again. Maybe, God forbid, forgo their third vacation this year. Not that it would help, since the deposits are paid and they’re already halfway across the world.

“If we could call your parents right now—” Mrs.Clarke begins.

“There’s no point,” I say. “They’re in Bali, for one thing. And I guarantee you the money isn’t there.”

I guess it isn’t entirely Mom and Dad’s fault. They might find all kinds of inventive ways to spend their money, but the six figures on defense attorneys to keep their son out of federal prison were at least genuinely unexpected. After all of that, of course they couldn’t cancel the Bali trip. They’ve been sostressed.

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