Page 102 of The Academy
DESSERTS
Praline bread pudding, bananas Foster tarts
May
26. Tiffinpalooza
Olivia H-T’s favorite day of the school year is the first Sunday in May: Tiffinpalooza. Everyone gathers in the Pasture to listen to live bands. Food trucks line up outside the Paddock, the artsy kids do face painting, and girls rock festival outfits.
At eight o’clock on Sunday morning (it’s a little early for a regular Sunday, but this is Tiffinpalooza), Olivia walks into Davi’s room to ask her opinion: Should she go with jean shorts and a baby tee or the more elevated look of a long, sky-blue jersey dress with cutouts?
But Davi’s room is pitch-black when Olivia enters. Davi rolls over, saying, “What the fuck?” She pulls down her silk eye mask, sees Olivia, and huffs. “What, Olivia?”
Shit,Olivia thinks. She should have waited. Davi is, once again, obsessed with Charley—she has even started eating with Charley and East in the Booth, despite the dozens of times Davi told Olivia that she thinks East is a burnout and a waste of space—but Olivia is praying she’ll gain back some of her social capital today. The headlining band is Liquid Butter; Olivia’s cousin Roddick is the front man. Davi and Roddick had a moment a couple of months ago during the school musical, and Olivia hopes Davi is still interested in him. (Even if she isn’t, she will be once she sees him perform. Who has ever been able to resist a rock star?) It was at Tiffinpalooza the year before when Davi seemed to consider Olivia relevant for thefirst time—He’s your cousin? Can you introduce me?—and Olivia would love similar magic to happen today.
“Sorry,” Olivia says. She holds out the outfits. “I just wanted your eyes on these looks.”
Davi pulls up her shade a few inches, then sinks back into her pillow. “God, I’m exhausted.”
“You are?” Olivia says. Olivia had asked Davi to hang out the night before, but Davi had said she wanted to go to bed early.
“Yeah,” Davi says. “I woke up in the middle of the night and studied vocab, then had a hard time falling back to sleep.”
Olivia knows Davi is obsessed with vocab and all fifth-formers will take the SAT in a week and a half. But when Olivia’s eyes adjust to the dimness of the room, she sees Davi’s hot-pink Cinq à Sept slip dress in a puddle on the floor. Olivia blinks. Was Davi trying it on for some reason or did she… sneak out?
Davi waves at her desk. “Would you hand me the Advil, please? I have a headache.”
Olivia complies. “Are you hungover?”
“Hungover?”Davi says. She seems even more annoyed now. “Can you come back later?”
“I mean, yeah,” Olivia says. She’ll go with the jean shorts even though she doesn’t love how her thighs look in them, but a long dress feels like too much. “So Roddick and the guys are arriving around one…”
Davi replaces her eye mask. “I don’t care about Roddick, Olivia. Can you please go?”
At least the weather is perfect,Olivia H-T thinks as she helps Miss Bergeron carry the common room sofa out onto the grass. The stage is all set up and the first band—students from the local high school in Haydensboro—is warming up. Everyone flows out of the dormsand the Teddy; the smell of barbecue smoke from the food trucks is literally mouthwatering.
Olivia and Tilly stand in line at the Moon Palace food truck because egg rolls and fried rice seem “healthier” than ribs and brisket sandwiches. Not that they’re overly concerned with wellness; Tilly has a water bottle filled with vodka and she offers Olivia a swig. “Act natural,” she says.
Hoooooh!Olivia nearly spits the vodka out, it’s so nasty. But one swallow on an empty stomach does the trick. Olivia immediately catches a buzz. She throws back another mouthful, then says to Tilly, “I’m pretty sure Davi was hungover this morning.”
“That’s funny,” Tilly says. “Madison J. got in my face earlier and she reeked of last night’s tequila.”
“Really?” Olivia says.“Madison?”That isn’t really possible. Madison J. has just been elected next year’s Head Prefect. “Well, Davi’s pink silk dress was balled up on her floor. Almost like… she wore it out last night?” Olivia realizes how crazy this sounds. But Davi was tired, and maybe hungover; she was probably lying about studying vocab, and the dress was right next to the bed where she would have taken it off before climbing in.
At that second, Davi, Charley, and East appear, all of them moving in slow motion and wearing dark sunglasses. Charley spreads out her Yale blanket in the grass and the three of them collapse. They’re joined by Madison J., and then Taylor, Dub, and Hakeem.
Olivia H-T and Tilly technically have the best seats—on the common room sofa, dead center—but now Olivia feels left out.
Tilly whispers, “You know that East keeps a truck on campus, right? In the Back Lot?”
“Yeah?” Olivia says. There are a lot of rumors about East; she’s never been sure which ones are true.
“I wonder if those guys are sneaking out and going to the Alibi,” Tilly says.
“What’s the Alibi?”
“A dive bar in Haydensboro.”
