Page 55 of The Academy
“Oh yeah?” he says. “That would be a turn-on? To hear me bloviate about the Articles of Confederation?”
Charley nearly comments on his use of the word “bloviate,” but she tries to imagine how one of the girls on her floor would respond.
“Thebiggestturn-on.” She holds his gaze. The moment is so loaded, Charley can nearly hear the air between them crackle.Kiss me!she thinks. He takes a breath and—is she imagining it?—leans in. Charley panics and bolts for the middle of the room, where she pulls the string that leaves them in darkness.
“Ready to go?” she asks. “I think it’s late.”
He gives a brief laugh. “Okay, Charles.”
East turns on his flashlight and leads Charley through the tunnel, up the stairs to the cellar. This is chivalrous because he exits out the other side to his own dorm. She can’t believe the way she just sabotaged her own dreams. What iswrongwith her?
He says, as he always does, “Have a good night, Charles.”
Charley, desperate to pretend like none of this matters to her (“chasing” is Out), says, “Night.”
When Charley looks at her phone, she sees it’s ten past ten. She has two texts, one from the floor prefect, Madison J., and one from Miss Bergeron, asking where she is.
Nobody could find you at the Sink,Miss Bergeron says.
Shit!Charley thinks. She runs around Classic South and tries her key card on the pad but the light flashes red and the speaker burps at her. Charley tries to flag down Davi, who’s in the hallway—ugh—but Davi ignores her.
Madison J. finally comes to let Charley in. Madison is a cool person, serious but kind: perfectly suited to her role as first-floor prefect. Charley knows that Madison J.’s mother was the first Blackfemale graduate of Tiffin back in the 1980s; there are pictures of her in the class composites lining the hallways of the Schoolhouse, one of the few Black faces in a sea of white.
“You have to report to Miss Clavel,” Madison says. (This is how the girls on the first floor have started referring to Simone Bergeron—it’s aMadelinereference.) “Also, wherewereyou? You weren’t at the Sink like you said. I was there all night.”
What the actual fuck?Charley thinks. She basically moves through her day like the Invisible Woman, which is why she felt comfortable slipping down to the tunnel. Who would ever notice she was missing? The answer was nobody… if she’d gotten back on time.
“Oh,” Charley says. “I was out, you know, drinking vodka Red Bulls, having orgasms.”
She watches a smile tug on the corners of Madison’s lips. “I’d let this slide,” she says. “But it’s not up to me. You have to go check in with Bergeron.”
Miss Bergeron is alone in the common room, picking Starburst wrappers and kernels of popcorn up off the floor. “Charley!” she says. “Wherewereyou? I was worried.”
“The Sink,” Charley says.
“Nobody saw you at the Sink.”
“I have a spot that’s tucked away,” Charley says. “Because even though it’s supposed to be alibrary,it gets pretty social.”
Miss Bergeron studies her.Please,Charley thinks,don’t press.At the beginning of the year, Miss Bergeron was so fervent about Charley having a social life that Charley almost feels as though she could tell Miss Bergeron the truth—I was down in a tunnel below the dorms with Andrew Eastman—and Miss Bergeron would be happy for her.
“It’s quarter past ten,” Miss Bergeron says. “The Sink kicks everyone out at nine fifty-five. Where have you been the last twenty minutes? You know check-in is at ten sharp. Frankly, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
Frankly, Charley can’t believe it either. “I took a walk.” This is a standard Tiffin excuse when people aren’t where they’re supposed to be because they’re in the Schoolhouse joining the Harkness Society or hooking up in God’s Basement. She considers sayingIt’s my dad’s birthday—but she can’t bring herself to invoke her dead father as a cover and so she says, “I had some things on my mind.”
Miss Bergeron sighs. “I have to give you an infraction. You’ll be restricted to the dorm tomorrow night. I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Charley says. She will happily study in her room tomorrow night, as long as she can check out Thursday.
Thursday afternoon at the’Bred Bulletinoffice, Ravenna says that she’s asked multiple people to try posting on Zip Zap and none of them have been successful. “This means someone has hijacked the app. Or there’s a ghost in the machine.”
Grady says, “You mean the ghost of Cinnamon Peters?”
Ravenna snaps her fingers in his face. “Hey,” she says sharply. “Respect.”
“It could be Mr. James,” Levi says. “He knows a lot of secrets.”
“Hahaha!” Ravenna says. “That dude does know a lot of secrets, but I doubt he knows how to post on the Zip Zap app.” She pats Levi on the head.
