Page 65 of The Academy
“None of that has a single thing to do with our ranking, Mikayla,” Audre says.
“I just think it warrants looking into,” Mikayla says. “For due diligence’s sake.” She points a finger at Audre. “Also? Rumor has it, Tiffin has a Zip Zap problem.”
There’s a bonfire down on the beach by Jewel Pond—this is a tradition on Old Bennington weekend, win or lose—but Dub doesn’t go.
Taylor sent him a barrage of messages:Did you show my text to anyone? I’m confused. Why would you do that? Did you tell anyone? Hakeem blocked me. He’ll never speak to me again. Dub? Hello? WTF?
It wasn’t me,he finally responds.I told no one, showed no one.He wants to say that he’s just as freaked out by this as she is. Whoever is running Zip Zap is like a sniper, strategically assassinating characters all over the school.I’m sorry about Hakeem. He’ll get over it.
But a little while later, Hakeem posts a picture on his Snapchat story of him with his arm around a third-form girl named Cassie Lee at the bonfire.
Alone in his room, alone in the entire dorm, Dub opens his laptop. The file from Cinnamon is where it always is, in the upperright-hand corner of his screen.DO NOT OPEN THIS FILE UNTIL THE MORNING OF OUR GRADUATION.
This file is his last link to Cinnamon, and Dub needs her tonight more than ever. He rolls his cursor over the file. One click and he would be in touch with her again.
He sighs, then opens his email instead. He writes to Ms. Robinson.
Can you please shut down the Tiffin Zip Zap app? It’s bad for the school.
Sincerely, Dub Austin.
15. Thanksgiving
After Olivia H-T asks 114 times if Davi will come home with her for Thanksgiving, Davi relents. Four and a half days isn’t enough time to make a trip back to London worthwhile, and her family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving anyway.
The year before, Davi went to Wisconsin with Cinnamon. That Wednesday night they went to a fish fry at a place called the Moose Club, which ended with Cinnamon’s father and his cronies, some of whom wore trucker hats, hoisting their draft beers in plastic cups while singing along to “Pink Houses.” Davi took a video and posted it to TikTok.
Thursday at Cinnamon’s parents’ farmhouse was a three-ring circus: grandparents and little cousins and a twenty-eight-poundturkey with two kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce with indentations from the can, four kinds of pie, and American football games on all day in the den where the uncles drank Leinenkugel’s and ate cheese curds. One of the uncles asked Davi where she was “from,” and when she said London and he said, “No, reallyfrom,before that,” Cinnamon stepped in and said, “Your fly is down, Scottie,” then she pulled Davi outside where they walked down a dark country road and smoked a joint that Cinnamon had stolen from Scottie’s jacket pocket, which was good enough revenge for Davi.
Now, Olivia H-T’s parents hire a black car to transport the girls from Tiffin to Beacon Hill in Boston. The H-Ts’ brownstone on Mount Vernon Street is five floors of refined understatement. (Davi finds this puzzling since nothing about Olivia is understated.) Its most impressive feature is a curving white marble staircase with an ebony banister that ascends all the way to the top floor (though there’s also an elevator). Davi admires the fine rugs and antiques; Mrs. H-T has aplethora(“excessive quantity”) of clocks—grandfather, grandmother, banjo, mantel, nautical, carriage—that give the house a soundtrack of ticking and chiming. Davi is tempted to whip out her phone and take pictures of the hand-painted mural in the foyer (Boston Harbor, 1830s) and the stained glass windows in the library, but she can sense Oliviawantingher to do this. With unconcealed pride, Olivia shows off a bronze bust of Charles Bulfinch, the architect who designed the Massachusetts State House. When she twists Charles’s head, a secret door opens to reveal Mr. H-T’s elegant man cave. There’s a wet bar and a glass-fronted cigar humidor.
“Isn’t thisfierce?” Olivia H-T says. “I’m not even allowed in here.”
Davi imagines posting from Mr. H-T’s secret inner sanctum—he’s a top executive with Fidelity—but she fears she’ll be asked to leave before the turkey is carved. She can’t help feeling that Olivia H-T has brought her to Boston because Olivia wants to be Davi’s content.Davi’s mind revisits the In and Out list that Charley Hicks published in the’Bred Bulletin. “Chasing” is Out—and yet this is exactly what Olivia is doing.
Olivia leads Davi to the kitchen, which is in the basement. It has brick walls, wooden beams, and a fireplace with an iron pot hanging from a hook. This is where they find Mrs. H-T, whose body type can most accurately be described as a bowling ball on toothpicks. Mrs. H-T has had a lot of work done on her face; her upper lip juts out like a shelf.
“I made you girls dinner,” she says. “You should eat something before you go out.” She presents a platter—clearly prepared elsewhere—of veggies with a doll-size dish of hummus.
“Thank you,” Davi says. She’s starving. On the drive, she asked Olivia if they could stop for lunch and Olivia said,I’m not hungry, are you?in a way that soundedtruculent(“aggressive or hostile”).
Davi snatches up a celery stick and drags it through the hummus while Mrs. H-T brings them two glasses of ice water with nearly translucent slices of lemon.
“Enjoy!” Mrs. H-T says before she disappears, and Davi gets the feeling that this is it—the vegetables and the dollop of hummus are dinner. She gazes around the kitchen—the pot in the fireplace is a design element, a prop, a nod to the days when the only people in this kitchen were servants—and finds no evidence of any other actual food. A bowl on the counter holds wooden apples. The bread box is empty.
“We’re going out?” Davi says. She hopes for one of the sports bars near Fenway; she would kill for some loaded potato skins.
“Yes, Klatsch in the South End is all over TikTok.” Olivia eats a plain sliver of red pepper. “We should finish up here and get ready.”
Finishup? Davi attacks the veggie platter—cauliflower, broccoli, carrots. She uses a coin of cucumber to swipe up the last of the hummus. “Does your mom cook on Thanksgiving?” she asks Olivia.
“God, no,” Olivia says, and Davi, who is British and therefore shouldn’t care about Thanksgiving, feels duped. “Come on, let’s go.”
At Klatsch, the line snakes down the block. Davi wants to suggest they go elsewhere but Olivia is locked in. “Do you have your fake? My fake is really good.”
Davi has her fake, though she doesn’t like to use it. She has 1.3 million Instagram followers, she’s basically a public figure; there’s always the chance the bouncer will recognize her and know she’s sixteen.
Davi therefore finds it hard to match Olivia H-T’s enthusiasm about seeing the inside of Klatsch. She’s freezing: She went with a Guizio mini, boots, a cropped sweater, and a leather jacket, which are no match for the icy hatchet of wind blowing down Tremont Street. A quick check of her phone reveals a cluster of restaurants nearby: dumplings, oysters, a French bistro.
