Page 16 of The Academy
“I want you to be as happy with someone as Hakeem and I are,” she says.
Dub says, “I was that happy.” This is mostly true. “Nobody can replace Cinnamon. I’ll never trust anyone like that again.” This is completely true.
“I get it,” Taylor says, though she doesn’t, quite. Taylor and Cinnamon were friendly and friend-adjacent, but not really friends. They were rivals—maybe that’s too strong a word?—in that they both wanted exactly the same things. They both auditioned forGrease.Cinnamon was cast as Sandy, Taylor as Frenchie. Cinnamon played the guitar, Taylor the piano. They both planned to run for Head Prefect or Honor Board chair; they both planned to apply to Duke Early Decision.
Taylor was just as devastated as everyone else when Cinnamon died, though her loss had a different timbre. On Miss Bergeron’s door, Taylor wrote the Louisa May Alcott quote“Rivalry adds so much to the charms of one’s conquests.”Without Cinnamon around, Taylor supposes she’ll get the lead in the school musical, and she’ll run uncontested for Honor Board chair next year. It feels anticlimactic somehow.
“There are a lot of cute third-formers,” Taylor says.
Dub scoffs. “I amnotdating a freshman.” Dub stubbornly clings to his public-school vocabulary. He still isn’t sure what’s meant by a “form.” To him, it sounds like a mold they’re all supposed to fit. He holds Taylor’s gaze. “Will you please stop?”
“Just sample the buffet, bro,” Hakeem says as his gaze rolls appreciatively over the dance floor. “Therearea lot of fine third-formers this year.”
Taylor elbows Hakeem in the ribs. “Keep talking like that and I’ll date Dub, and you can have your little third-formers.”
Hakeem laughs, though it’s not entirely funny. He has long suspected that Taylor has feelings for Dub. She and Cinnamon had a frosty relationship, so the four of them could never really hang out—and Hakeem got the distinct vibe that Taylor was jealous of Cinnamon and Dub. Now she’s obsessed with the man’s love life. Hakeem suspects she’s secretly pleased that Dub doesn’t want to date again. Since the start of school, the three of them have done everything together—except football, which is just Hakeem and Dub, and C-period English, which is just Dub and Taylor. During C-period, Hakeem takes Intro to Anthropology, and when he left class on Thursday, he found Taylor and Dub strolling down the hall, heads together, laughing, until they spotted him and sobered up. Does this chafe Hakeem? Yes, a little bit. In anthropology, they’ve started learning about societal structures, and all Hakeem can think is that he and Taylor and Dub are practicing some kind of polyandry, which is when a woman takes more than one husband.
He notes the way Taylor and Dub are staring at each other right now.
He takes Taylor by the hand. “Let’s dance.”
Taylor rises with reluctance. “Are you coming, Dub?”
“Nah,” he says, gazing over at the food. “I’m going to take Hakeem’s suggestion and sample the buffet.”
Dub is relieved when Hakeem and Taylor head off to the dance floor; being around the two of them is torture.
The DJ plays a dance remix of Lana del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness.”
This song reminds him of Cinnamon, but to be fair, most songs do. He’s not quite sure how he’s supposed to bounce back from whathappened. She killed herself. It wasn’t a cry for help, and it wasn’t an accidental overdose. She’d left the note under the flowers he’d picked for her.I’m sorry.
And… there’s something else eating at him.
In the hours before she died, Cinnamon sent Dub an email with an attachment. The subject of the email—which she’d notably sent to his little-used Gmail address and not his school account—wasDO NOT OPEN THIS FILE UNTIL THE MORNING OF OUR GRADUATION.
The body of the email said:I mean it, Dub. Save this in the vault until May 29, 2027. You’re the only one I can trust. I love you and you’re going to be fine, I promise. Cin.
Dub has, of course, toyed with opening the file. What could it be? A part of him worries that it’s some kind of tell-all spilling the confidences Cinnamon had been keeping, including Dub’s own. But no, Cinnamon wouldn’t do that. Then again, she’d already done something unthinkable.
Although his cursor has spent plenty of time blinking on top of the attachment, he hasn’t clicked it open. She sent this to him—and not to Davi—for a reason. She knew he alone would keep it secret. He would do exactly as she asked him: Save the file until the morning of graduation, a year and nearly nine months from now.
Dub watches Hakeem and Taylor dance. He doesn’t want to think about graduation. It will mean leaving all the people he loves.
What the hell, he thinks. When he heads out to the dance floor, everyone cheers.
Kodak Black, the Killers, Calvin Harris, Fisher: The dance is a full-on rave, and we’re all out on the dance floor in one pulsing mass of sweaty teenage humanity. Mr. Rivera passes out glow-in-the-dark loops, which we fashion into necklaces, bracelets, halos. Then,finally, Davi and her entourage make their entrance—like Beyoncé at the Met Ball, Davi is always the last to arrive. The crowd parts so that Davi and all the Madisons and Olivias can take center floor. The DJ plays “Doses and Mimosas,” and we pogo-jump with our fists in the air, chanting, “To all the bitch-ass hoes who hate me the most…”
The next song is Mike Posner’s “Cooler Than Me,” and we back out into a wide circle so that Head of School Ms. Robinson can have one dance. This year she’s escorted by Señor Perez, who has moves—he twirls and dips Ms. Robinson. We hoot and cheer and take videos that we’ll post later so that kids from other schools can watch them and wish they too went to Tiffin.
7. The Tunnel
Audre Robinson steps off the dance floor perspiring and exhilarated. Señor Perez is still out boogying with the kids, but Audre’s tradition is one dance only. She’ll be the subject of 114 private Snapchat stories, but it’s all in good fun.
She grabs a box of water from a silver bowl on the buffet table (there are no single-use plastics at Tiffin) and heads to the entrance, which has now become the exit. She’ll remind each student leaving the dance:You may go only to the Grille or back to the dorms.The school year has been without infractions so far, but Audre assumes some are coming. First Dance makes the kids horny; they’re high on endorphins and sugar from the mocktails, and a few will no doubttry to sneak into God’s Basement or the Schoolhouse to join the Harkness Society. Mr. James is patrolling the grounds in the Gator, but on Saturdays, she knows, he starts drinking right after lunch, so how effective will he be?
Honey Vandermeid and Cordelia Spooner are stationed by the door. Audre senses tension between them: Are they squabbling? Audre hears Honey say, “Honestly, Cord, when did you get soneedy?”
Oh dear,Audre thinks. She knows that Honey and Cordelia are lovers; she once caught Honey emerging from Cordelia’s cottage so early in the morning—and looking so ravished—that it couldn’t be explained any other way. While Honey fumbled for an excuse, Audre said, “Your personal life is your own business. Just be discreet.” Audre values Honey—her skills as a college counselor are unparalleled—and Audre counts Cordelia Spooner as the MVP of Tiffin’s staff. Audre relies on her good judgment, her clear eye, and most importantly, her discretion. Cordelia Spooner is the only other person at the academy who has specific knowledge of the agreement with Jesse Eastman.
