Page 34 of The Academy
But of course itisa thing. The Head’s office just released the schedule: There’s a reception Friday afternoon followed by a steak dinner, and the girls’ field hockey game under the lights. (This seems to be telegraphing that, at Tiffin, girls’ sports are given the same attention as boys’ sports, which isn’t true.) Saturday goes: breakfast, Chapel, then there are some seminars (applying to college as a student athlete; an exploration of diversity at Tiffin) and rare tours of the chapel (that end with a visit to the roof), then the football game, then most kids go out to dinner with their parents to the Hobgoblin or the Wooden Duck.
I’m coming anyway,Fran said.I want to see what I’m paying for.
Of course her mother would bring up money; purse strings are the strongest tie between them.
Mom, it’s actually nothing. My teachers can email you my progress reports.
I’m coming,Fran wrote.End of discussion.
Fine,Charley said.As long as you come alone.
What Charley meant was that Fran should not bring Joey.
Fran “liked” this text, and the conversation ended with a victory. Charley could maybe tolerate Fran (it might even be nice to have her mother to herself for once), but she would not—could not—abide a visit from Joey. She tries to imagine Fran and Joey on Tiffin’s campus with all the other parents. Everyone would stare: Joey is fifteen years younger than Fran, he’s covered in tattoos, he’ll show up in cargo shorts and work boots wearing an Orioles cap over his man bun. Everything about Joey is just wrong, starting with his name. He’s twenty-nine years old and goes by “Joey,” like he’s a characteron a ’90s sitcom or a singer in a boy band. He doesn’t have a college degree and, as far as Charley knows, has never read a book. He has been cursed with what Charley thinks of as a “Deep Dundalk” accent. When he says, “down the ocean,” it sounds like “day-yoon the aeeyou-shunn.”
Once upon a time, Joey was Charley’s father’s project. Joey had a misdemeanor charge for dealing psychedelics; Joey’s uncle was a big client of the law firm where Charley’s father, Thad Hicks, worked. Thad got the charges dropped in exchange for thirty hours of community service, and then Thad invited Joey to the house for dinner, and over her famous homemade osso buco, Fran Hicks offered Joey a job at the garden center. After Joey left, Charley remembers her parents kissing and then her father saying, “Thank you for doing that. He’s a nice kid, just a little misguided.”
Little did her father know, three years later, Fran and Joey would be married. Joey still works for Fran: He now carries the title of project manager, on the landscaping side. His main job, Charley knows, is to drive the van around with deliveries and dig holes like a literal gopher.
Joey infiltrated all the spaces in their house where Charley’s father used to be. He took over Thad Hicks’s home office; it was where he played video games. Charley had caught him with his grass-stained bare feet on Thad’s desk, wearing giant headphones, screaming at someone named “Ant” as he jabbed at the controller.
Charley had started researching boarding schools the day after her mother and Joey’s wedding, but her mother refused to entertain the idea, even when Charley pointed out that Thad Hicks himself had gone to St. George’s.Right,Fran said.He was the one who said he would never want to miss a single day of your high school years. You’re at the top of your class at Loch Raven. Hating Joey isn’t a good enough reason for you to leave.
The deadline for boarding school applications came and went.Charley refused to speak to Joey; she left a room when he entered; most evenings she ate dinner at her desk while she studied.
Then came a Saturday night in mid-April: Charley and her best friend, Beatrix, had been out at a party. Beatrix had gotten wasted; she was sleeping over at Charley’s because that’s what she did on nights when they went out and Beatrix drank. Apparently, Beatrix went downstairs for a glass of water in the middle of the night and discovered Joey in the kitchen eating ice cream straight from the container in front of the open freezer. Beatrix said she was about to turn around and drink water from the bathroom tap, but then Joey saw Beatrix and engaged her in conversation. He fixed her not only a glass of ice water but a grilled cheese sandwich as well. As Beatrix ate, Joey asked her where she lived, how many siblings she had, when her birthday was, if she had a boyfriend.I assume the answer is yes,Joey said.Since you’re smoking hot.
The next morning, Beatrix said,I’m pretty sure Joey is obsessed with me.
No,Charley thought. But yes, of course yes, because Joey was a lowlife!
Charley confronted her mother, who had the gall to say that Beatrix just loved drama, she was blowing things out of proportionlike she always does.Joey had told Fran about his chat with Beatrix; he was making an effort to know Charley’s friends since Charley wouldn’t give him the time of day.
“Joey would never be inappropriate with one of your friends,” Fran Hicks said.
Was her mother living under a rock? Just because Joey wore a T-shirt to bed that saidYOUKNOWILIKEMYGIRLSALITTLEBITOLDERdidn’t mean he wasn’t a total creeper. He had been scheming Beatrixin their own house! Using the transitive property, it followed that Joey might also look at Charley this way. And sorry, but Charleydidn’t need a better reason to go away to school than that. She applied to sixteen boarding schools, from the Cate School in California to the Madeira School in Virginia.
They all said sorry, she was too late for admission in the fall.
Except for Tiffin.
At that instant, a pebble hits Charley’s window, scaring the shit out of her. She checks her phone. The text is from East, not her mother.Hey, I have good news.
The previous week, East asked Charley to Intervis and she agreed, assuming he was finally going to capitulate and ask for help with history. But instead he took her hand (again, holding hands!) and led her down the back stairs, outside to the cellar door and into the tunnel from the north side. Charley was appalled at herself for so flagrantly breaking the rules on a school night, but East assured her they wouldn’t stay long, no one would miss them, he just wanted to see it again. He held her hand while they were in the tunnel and by the time they reached the bomb shelter, Charley had memorized the feel of East’s warm, strong fingers intertwined with hers.
When he let her hand go to yank on the string of the overhead light, she was crushed. He started talking about building a bar—mahogany with a granite countertop, with Persian rugs and Tiffany lamps. Charley nodded along, affirming every design decision, though in her head she thought:Granite countertops? Tiffany lamps?Part of her was relieved his ideas were so grandiose. If he’d just been talking about a beer pong table and folding chairs, she would have been worried. That could conceivably become a reality. But a speakeasy with Persian rugs?Never going to happen.
Another pebble. Charley peers behind the shade and there he is, pointing at the door.
Charley wraps up her sandwich, closes her book, checks her teethin the mirror while reminding herself that she doesn’t care, she’s not obsessed with him.
She goes to the front door to let him in, then stands there like a store mannequin while he walks down the hall toward her room. She’s pretty sure they’re breaking the rules yet again—visits during Intervis are okay as long as they’re documented and the door stays cracked. East walks right into her room, helps himself to an Oreo from her hanging baskets of snacks, and flops onto her bed. “Close the door,” he says.
“But…”
“Everyone’s at the game.”
Right, she thinks, so why do they need to close the door? But she does it anyway.
