Page 72 of The Academy
“By all means, make yourself at home.”
Davi smiles. Any other girl at Tiffin would kill to have Davi Banerjee in her room—but not Charley. She’simpervious(“immune”) to Davi’s charms. “Are you going to the Kringle with East?”
This gets Charley’s attention. She sits up, sets the book down. “Where did you hear that? It’s not on Zip Zap, is it?”
“No,” Davi says. “East told me himself. I asked if he wanted to go together and he said he was taking you.”
Charley sinks back into her pillows. “Yeah.”
“Can I just ask? What’s up with you? You’ve been asked to the Kringle by the hottest guy at Tiffin and you don’t even look excited. You lookbored.Do you think you’re too good for East? Too good for any of us?”
Charley studies Davi for a second. “I do not think that, no. I’m just socially awkward.”
“I figured that much out day one,” Davi says. “But you don’t even try.”
“Chasing is Out,” Charley says. “I figure if I present my authentic self, my people will find me.”
“Is that what happened with East? He found you?”
Charley’s eyebrows rise and her lips turn up just a tick. “I have no idea. He’s hard to read.”
“Amen to that,” Davi says. “So what are you going to wear?”
“Wear?”
“To the Kringle?”
Charley glances toward her closet, which was what Davi was afraid of. “No. You can’t wear a khaki skirt and monogrammed sweater to this.” She pauses. “Come to my room.”
“I will,” Charley says, “under one condition.”
Under one condition?Davi thinks.Are they on the CW?“Which is?”
“You have to get help with your… issue.”
Whoa!Davi nearly storms out of the room. Davi’s “issue” is none of Charley’s business. “Forget it,” Davi says. “You do realize I came in here to help you, right?”
“I want to help you too,” Charley says. “I don’t even really like you, Davi. But I can acknowledge that you have some great qualities—you’re strong, charismatic, a natural leader. I’m sure you feel pressure to be perfect on the outside—”
Davi holds up a hand. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, please. You don’t know anything about my life. Nobody does. I’ll handle my own issues if and when I fucking feel like it.”
Charley studies Davi for one unsettling moment. “That’s a more honest answer than I expected, I guess,” Charley says, swinging her feet to the floor. She sighs. “Fine. I’ll let you dress me up like a doll.”
Preparation for the Kringle is a lot like the scene before First Dance:Les fillescrowd into the bathroom, vying for sink space, while the JBL speaker blares “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” followed by “Oklahoma Smokeshow.” Simone thought the girls might listen to holiday music, but she was naïve.
Simone is wearing a long black dress with long sleeves and theslightest boatneck. She received a terse email from Cordelia Spooner a few days earlier, reminding her that although she’s young, she should dress “modestly and appropriately” for the Kringle.The dress you wore to First Dance was several inches too short,Cordelia said.We like all faculty to lead by example, especially someone as influential as you.
When the girls see Simone, they shriek. “That dress isso Crucible-core.”
Yes,Simone thinks. She feels like she’s back in the seventeenth century being disciplined by the town elders.
What’s different about the Kringle is that Charley Hicks is participating (rather than holing up in her room with Dickens’sA Christmas Carol,as Simone expected). She took one of the first showers, then slipped into Davi’s room.
The other girls appear in the hallway, hair half up or in curlers, in bras and panties; Tilly Benbow wears her “transitional garment”—an old dress shirt of her father’s, which hangs to her knees and has Flawless Filter smudged all over the collar. She likes it because it buttons, so she won’t mess up her hair taking it off. The girls are trying to appear like they’re not loitering around Davi’s closed door.
Simone overhears Olivia H-T say, “I don’t get it. The girl issucha freak.”
“Olivia,” Simone says sharply.
