Page 43 of The Academy
“Well,” Charley says, “I guess I’ll go find her.” She wanders away, scanning the crowd for Fran. There’s a huge floral arrangement in the middle of the tent surrounded by tiers of boards and platters: cheeses, crackers, sliced meats, spring rolls, deviled eggs, tea sandwiches, and crab cakes. There’s a line of parents at the bar. Charley sees Levi from theBulletinwith his parents, and she considers going over to ask if he was in on the plot to mortify her, though she realizes Levi is powerless when it comes to Ravenna. She notices Davi’s parents talking to Ms. Robinson. She overhears one of the mothers say, “If you haven’t booked spring break in Harbour yet, you might be too late. Everything sells out.”
Suddenly, Charley hears someone calling her name and she cranes her neck to see her mother standing in a circle of people, waving. Charley threads her way over, but when she’s a few yards away, she stops. Her mother looks stunning—she’s had her hair blown out and she’s wearing a forest-green wrap dress (so Tiffin) and big gold hoops and lipstick. She’s surrounded by the girls on Charley’s floor—Willow Levy, Madison R., Olivia P., and even two sixth-formers, Annabelle Tuckerman and Tiffin’s Head Prefect, Lisa Kim.
Then Charley blinks.No,she thinks. She feels like her hair is ablaze. AWHAT THE FUCKforms in her brain, but she can’t even whisper it to herself because she has too much to process. There’s a man standing next to Charley’s mother, and that man is… Joey, though he’s almost unrecognizable. First of all, he’s cut his hair. Gone is the man-bun; his hair is now short in the back with floppy bangs in the front.Like East’s hair,Charley thinks. Except East’s hair is dark and Joey’s hair is a coppery brown that has been sun-bleached to almost gold. He still has a tan on his face and his neck, which pops against the navy of his button-down shirt. He’s wearing a pair of brick-colored canvas pants—Nantucket Reds, Charleyrealizes—with tasseled loafers that look casually worn in. The cuffs of his shirt are turned back at the wrists and all his hideous tattoos are covered up.
A voice in Charley’s ear says, “Oh my god, heishot.” Charley turns: It’s some third-form girl Charley doesn’t even know. The girl looks at Charley and says, “Everyone in this tent is scheming your stepdad.”
Charley studies the girls surrounding her mother and Joey.Oh my god,she thinks.They think Joey is a DILF.She recalls the glint in Beatrix’s eyes when she said,I’m pretty sure Joey is obsessed with me.
Charley spins around and goes back the way she came. She sees an abandoned glass of wine on a clearing tray and snaps it up, taking one giant swallow, then another. She sets the glass back down before anyone can see. The wine spreads through Charley’s chest like warm syrup, which is nice, though it does little to blunt the fact that she’s living in a nightmare. As if the In and Out list wasn’t traumatic enough, her mother brought Joey to Family Weekend.
“Charley?”
Mr. Rivera has appeared out of nowhere. “Hey,” she says.
“Is your mother here?” he asks.
“She is,” Charley says. She waves a hand in Fran’s general direction. “She’s over talking to…” Charley wonders if Mr. Rivera has read theBulletin.Oh god.Orgasms.Her face burns. “I have to go.”
“Go?”
“To the ladies’ room,” Charley says. She beelines out of the tent as her phone starts humming. That will be her mother, but there’s no way she’s picking up.
Where can she go? Not the dorms, there will be too many stragglers; the girls on Charley’s floor take forever to get ready. (Because of theirmakeup,Charley thinks. Because of theirgratuitous posting.Everyone definitely believes she wrote that list.) She can’t go to theTeddy; the third- and fourth-formers will be showing the Grille and the arcade to their parents. Charley passes the Paddock, where they’re setting up for the steak dinner; she can smell meat grilling and her stomach grumbles. But there’s no way in hell she’s sitting down with her mother and Joey—and now, a bunch of Joey stans.
Her last option is the Sink, which should be deserted.Nobodywill be at the library right now, and there’s a bathroom on the third floor. Charley takes the stairs two by two and weaves through the stacks and around the corner to the ladies’ room, which is cool and quiet. Charley closes herself in a stall, sits on the toilet, and starts blasting her mother.
You lied to me, tricked me, you know I can’t stand him and DO NOT want him here. He’s the reason I left home in the first place. What is wrong with you?
There’s no response. Of course not. Fran is probably getting off on all the attention. Does she not realize she looks like a hardcore cougar?
Charley’s phone buzzes.I’m sorry. He really wanted to come. He made an effort to clean up for this.
I don’t care!Charley texts back.That makes it worse!
The next text says:I know you miss your dad. I miss him too, but he would want us both to move forward.
Charley wipes at the tears dripping down her face. She hates that she’s crying on Family Weekend (Out: crying)—she feels like a cliché. But Fran is right: Charley does miss her father. She wants to edit not only this weekend but also the past several months so that her father doesn’t have shoulder surgery, or he has the surgery but wakes up like he’s supposed to. Fran doesn’t start dating Joey, doesn’t marry Joey, and for fuck’s sake doesn’t bring Joey to Tiffin Family Weekend.
Charley texts back:I will not spend one second with you while he’s here. But that won’t be a problem because it seems like you’ve found plenty of other Tiffin students to hang out with.
Charley’s phone rings. Charley declines the call.I’m not talking to you. If you want to see me, he has to leave.
You’re being unreasonable.
Is Charley being unreasonable? Joey told Beatrix she was hot—and sorry, but that’s gross. Even if Beatrix was exaggerating or flat-out lying (which isn’t impossible), Joey still has no redeeming qualities. Except that, for some reason, he makes her mother happy. (But that seems to indicate that Fran’s judgment is impaired.)
Charley wipes at her face and is about to head back to the dorms—she’ll barricade herself in her room (forbidden: page 5 ofThe Bridle,“doors must not be obstructed or padlocked”)—when she hears someone enter the bathroom.
Not possible, she thinks. Nobody uses this bathroom. Hardly anyone knows it exists.
A second later, Charley hears retching in the next stall, then, unmistakably, a splash of vomit hits the toilet bowl. Charley remains silent and raises her feet off the ground so they won’t be seen. The vomiting stops as abruptly as it started. There’s a flush, then water runs at the sink. Charley peers through the gap by the door hinges and sees… Davi.
Well, Charley thinks, if she wasn’t sure about Davi before, she is now.
After Davi leaves the bathroom, Charley’s phone buzzes with a text. It’s her mother.Joey is going back to the hotel for the night. Please come to the dinner with me.
Charley is so shook about what she just witnessed that she types:Ok, be there in 5.
