Page 105 of The Academy
Hakeem shakes his head. “So you just… what? You really never had a thing for her? Really?”
“Really,” Dub says, his voice husky. He’s almost drunk enough to say,It isn’t Taylor I have a thing for.
Sunday, it rains. Simone gets an alert that the boys’ baseball game against Brownwell-Mather has been postponed and there’s nothing else on the schedule. Simone hears some of the girls leaving for brunch at the Paddock, and although she dreams all week about Chef’s eggs Benedict with extra hollandaise poured over her hash browns, the dining hall has become a minefield. She has to avoid not only Rhode, but now Honey Vandermeid as well. Honey, who tried tokissSimone in the back of their Uber several weeks ago, then pretended like it was no big deal, and who has proceeded to freeze Simone out as thoughSimonewere the one who did something wrong.
It’s sounfair,Simone thinks. Rhode behaves badly, Honey behaves badly, and Simone pays the price.
With nothing on her docket all day, Simone is free to go to the weight room and start working on her “summer body,” or she can write prompts for her students’ final papers. But why waste a rainy Sunday being productive?
She rummages through her stash in the closet. Of the twelve bottles she brought back from her parents’ house after spring break, only four remain. Well, three and a half. There’s half a bottle of decent burgundy, two bottles of fumé blanc, then the prize: a bottle of Billecart-Salmon champagne. Simone’s mother loves “Billie”; she never fails to mention that Madame Billecart and Monsieur Salmon were the first married couple to hyphenate their names. (Is this true? Simone has never bothered to check.)
Simone was planning on saving the Billie for a special occasion, by which she supposes she meant Prize Day, though the end of that day requires Simone to do thorough room-cleaning checks, which cannot be accomplished while shit-faced.
It would be better to drink the Billie on a day when Simone has nothing going on. Like today, for example.
The bottle is room temperature and the Billie deserves a proper chilling. Simone sticks the bottle in the freezer compartment of her mini fridge and sets her timer for three hours, which will bring her to two p.m.A perfectly respectable time to start drinking,she thinks.
She’s at her desk drafting possible essay prompts—it’s much easier to work knowing she has champagne waiting—when there’s a tentative knock on her door.
“Come in!” Simone calls out, but no one enters.
When Simone cracks open the door, she finds Olivia Hudezech-Tottingknaffer on the other side, looking very grave indeed. Simone ushers Olivia inside, taking a beat, as usual, to read the quote in red in the center of the papered side of the door:“I think most of humankind would agree, the hard part of high school is the people.”Simone had been tempted to rip the paper down and start fresh because it’s such a negative sentiment. Recently, however, she has found herself in complete agreement with it.
“Come sit,” Simone says, indicating the stool at the foot of Simone’s bed.
“No, I don’t… I just…”
“Olivia,” Simone says. “What’s up?”
Olivia’s facial expression is givingSomeone’s dead or dying,or possiblyPlan B failed and I’m pregnant.“If I tell you something, it’s confidential, right?” Olivia H-T says. “As in, you couldn’t even say it was me who told you?”
Simone nods; now, she’s intrigued. She reminds herself that Olivia H-T is insecure, which causes her to be overly dramatic, and she’s a bit of a pick-me girl besides that. “Everything you tell me stays in this room. If it needs to leave this room to ensure someone’s safety, your anonymity is assured.” There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but Simone won’t go into all that until she hears what Olivia has to say.
“Some of the girls on the floor—Charley, Davi, Willow, Madison J., and Taylor,” she says. “They’re sneaking out. Last night, and I think maybe every Saturday, they go somewhere. Maybe to the Alibi? In Andrew Eastman’s truck?”
At the mention of East’s name, Simone tenses. “I’m sorry?” she says. “What makes you think this?”
Olivia H-T’s eyes flick toward the door. Simone says, “It’s okay, you’re doing the right thing. You can tell me.”
Olivia describes entering Davi’s room a while ago and seeing the silk dress on the floor. She tells Simone about Davi’s headache and then, in the days following, the whispering, the unusual groupings.They’re all in on it,Olivia says. Five girls from their floor. Olivia started checking their rooms, including last night at one thirty. They were all gone. Olivia couldn’t explain it, but Tilly thought they were going somewhere in East’s truck. The Alibi in Haydensboro.
The Alibi is a trigger. Simone can’t believe that Honey turned out to be every bit the predator that Rhode was. Honey was worse because Simone had trusted her.
“You wouldn’t wear a silk dress to the Alibi,” Simone says. “Plus, they’re all underage.”
“Davi has a good fake,” Olivia says.
Simone thinks about the bartender, Jefferson. There’s no way he’d serve a bunch of high school kids. They aren’t going to the Alibi. The Wooden Duck? But that doesn’t sound right either. They aren’t going off campus.So then,Simone wonders,where are they going?
Suddenly, she knows.
She gives Olivia a hug. “I’ll take things from here,” she says. “Thank you for letting me know.”
Olivia breathes out against Simone’s shoulder. “I’m just worried about their safety,” she says.
No, she isn’t,Simone thinks.She’s jealous, and bitter that she wasn’t included. Like any tattletale, she wants to see them go down.
And oh, they will.
