Page 42 of The Academy
Pulling people for chats
Outfit slideshows
Orgasms
School spirit
Fifth-form repeats
Gratuitous posting
Charley reads the list three times, her hands trembling more visibly each time. She wants to open her window and yell,I didn’t write this! Ravenna wrote this!Charley doesn’t have Ravenna’s cell number; otherwise she would be calling her right now. The worst thing about this list is that enough of it tracks (In: staying in, reading, hating people; Out: makeup, crying, drama, outfit slideshows, school spirit) that most people will believe Charley wrote it. The item that addles Charley the most, of course, isorgasms.What does Charley know about orgasms? Nothing. Also, vodka Red Bulls? Fifth-form repeats? (Like East,she thinks.Oh god, oh god, will people think that’s a coded allusion to East?)
A text comes into her phone from her mother:In the reception tent, where are u?
In my room, packing,Charley wants to respond.We have to go home.
Can you come to the dorms, please?Charley texts. She’s going to have to spend all of Family Weekend with her mother in 111 South.
You said to meet you at the tent,her mother writes back.I’m at the tent. I have wine. Just come here, please.
Charley pulls on her peacoat. Her life, she thinks, is over.
Charley trudges across campus toward the tent on the front lawn of the Manse, worried that her mother is standing in a corner by herself, waiting for Charley so that the two of them can stand in a corner together, gazing out at the other kids and parents socializing in bunches because they all know each other already—not only from previous years’ Family Weekends but because they all have houses in the Hamptons and on Nantucket and they spend Christmas in Palm Beach or Lyford Cay. There’s a sticky web of wealth and privilege for the East Coast boarding school elite, and all these people are caught in it. Then there’s Davi, who exists on an even higher plane. In summer, she goes to Tuscany and hangs out with actual aristocracy; at Christmas, she skis in Courchevel.
Charley feels clammy with anxiety as the tent comes into view; she hears chatter and laughter and a tinkling piano (Mr. Chuy must be playing). The only reason she’s going into the tent, if she’s honest, is so she can pull Ravenna aside for a chat and demand that she print a correction on the author of the In and Out list. That can’t wait until the next issue; it will have to be sent via email so that Charley’s name is cleared.She did not come up withorgasmsorfifth-form repeats!
Olivia H-T emerges from the tent with two bullfroggish adultswho must be her parents—it’s funny how they both look like her in different ways—and she beams at Charley.
“Charley!” she says. “Hey!”
“Hey?” Charley says. Olivia H-T isn’t usually friendly to Charley, but maybe now that the parents are here, the rules have changed? Or maybe Olivia H-T read the list and she too feels like orgasms are In? Does Olivia H-T know anything about orgasms?
Charley enters the tent and is immediately offered a glass of wine off a tray by one of the catering staff. The dude mistakes her for a parent, maybe because she looks like she wants to kill someone (Ravenna). “No, thank you,” Charley says curtly.
She sees Madison J. and Tilly Benbow with their parents, and both Madison and Tilly wave to her. Toher? Charley turns around to see if there is someone else—someone normal—standing behind her. Nope, they’re waving at her. What the hell is going on? She feels a hand at her elbow and turns to see Taylor Wilson with a woman—her mother, obviously—in a skirted business suit, pearls, and heels. Taylor is in three of Charley’s classes and has always been perfectly nice, though, again, they don’t speak except about school-related things.
“Charley, this is my mother, Kathy Wilson.”
Kathy’s handshake is warm. “Hello, Charley. I sit on Tiffin’s board of directors. Taylor tells me you’re one of the brightest students at the school. I’ve been eager to meet you.”
“Oh…?” Charley feels a flush of pleasure, and she dearly hopes neither Kathy nor Taylor has seen the’Bred Bulletin.
“I know it must be hard entering Tiffin as a fifth-former,” Kathy Wilson says. “I went here myself, Class of 1987, and there was one girl in my year who entered as a fifth-former. I was so sick of everyone else by that point that she ended up becoming my best friend.” Kathy pats Charley’s shoulder. “So that’s one advantage. You’re a fresh face.”
Charley isn’t sure how she’s supposed to respond to this, but Taylor saves her. “Your mom is here. She was looking for you.”
