Page 100 of The Academy
“Not here,” he says.
Hmmm,Taylor thinks. She turns to check on Dub and finds him at the bar talking to Madison J. So Taylor recrosses her legs, turning them toward Hakeem.
Davi has been out at bars, cocktail lounges, proper pubs, and of course nightclubs—she has more experience drinking than everyone here combined—but she has never been anywhere this unexpected and…rarefied(“distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people”). For example, Willow Levy is sitting on Royce Stringfellow’s lap in one of the cup chairs, and who hadthaton her bingo card? Davi perches on one of the green velvet barstools, finishing her Tom Collins as she listens to Billy Joel singing “Vienna.” She dips her hand into the bowl of red-skinned peanuts and says to East, “I had no idea you were capable of something like this.”
He grins. “I know,” he says. “Nobody did.”
The night ends at promptly two forty-five. East flickers the chandelier, collects glasses, and deposits them all in the sink. He returns their phones and everyone grabs their jackets.
Charley kisses East. “This,” she says, “was a triumph.”
“What did I tell you, Charles?” he says, goosing her. “Be careful getting back. I’m staying to clean up.”
Charley wants to stay with him, she wants to make love on the sofa after everyone’s gone, but Davi, Taylor, Madison, and Willow are waiting for her to lead them through the tunnel and back to reality.
Nobody can wait to do it again—and so they all return the next Saturday, and the Saturday after that. There are no slipups, no leaks;Charley can’t quite believe how seamless it is. They leave in darkness, they return in darkness. They’ve always been given Sunday mornings to sleep in, and because they’ve each had only two or at most three cocktails, no one is messy and their hangovers are easily cured with one of Chef Haz’s Monte Cristo sandwiches.
Charley wonders if they should include more people, maybe a few sixth-formers? Ravenna, with her New Yorker sensibility, wouldlovePriorities. And what about Teague Baldwin? “I feel bad that they’ll graduate without experiencing the best thing about Tiffin,” Charley says.
“No,” East says. “We have something that works. The group is tight. As soon as we introduce a new variable, we change the equation, and who knows what will happen.” He kisses her. “Trust me, Charles.”
Charley knows he’s right—and doesn’t she love how exclusive it is? Doesn’t she love that people like Olivia H-T and Tilly Benbow have no idea what’s going on directly below them every Saturday night? Charley and the others have created the beloved trope of every campus novel Charley has ever read: the secret society.
Out of the blue, Charley receives a text from Beatrix.What’s *new* at Tiffin these days? U being *good*?
Charley tenses. She hasn’t heard from Beatrix since spring break.What’s *new*?Charley thinks.Am I being *good*?Are the timing and phrasing of this eerie, or is Charley hypersensitive?
Charley hearts the text, then responds:Being good.Followed by the angel emoji.
She thinks how shocked Beatrix would be to learn this isn’t at all true.
Going to Priorities, Taylor thinks, is kind of like conducting a love affair.
And then, suddenly, Taylorisconducting a love affair—with Hakeem.
During the nights at Priorities, they claim seats on the sofa. Dub has taken to chatting with Madison J. or Charley; he likes to get into intellectual debates, it’s English class 2.0, but Taylor and Hakeem prefer to leave school behind. In the third week, Hakeem pulls Taylor close and holds her hand. Taylor checks to see if Dub is watching, but who is she kidding? He doesn’t care. By the end of the night, Hakeem is whispering,I want you back.
The following Monday, Hakeem texts Taylor, asking her to Intervis. Taylor typesFuck yes,then deletes it. If she Intervisses with Hakeem, everyone on his floor will know it and word will get back to Cassie Lee, whose world will come crashing down. Part of Taylor would love to crush Cassie’s dreams, but Taylor has just been elected next year’s Honor Board chair, and she doesn’t need the strike against her integrity. She says,How about God’s Basement?
Hakeem sends a thumbs-up.
They meet in God’s Basement twice and then, because the weather is nice, they spend one night out by Jewel Pond; when Taylor gets back to her dorm she has sand in her underwear. She still doesn’t cede her virginity; she’s not ready. Hakeem says he understands, he says he respects her, says he’s so happy to have her back. He tells her he loves her.
The fact remains that Taylor loves Dub. But for now, she’ll enjoy being the beloved.
As relieved as Audre is to have finally eradicated Zip Zap, she feels terrible about expelling Levi Volpere.
“He left you with no choice,” Cordelia Spooner says. “Besides, I have it on good authority that St. Albans snapped him right up.”
The only good thing about Zip Zap was that it distracted Audre from the mess of theAmerica Todayinquiry—at least until Audre receives an email in her inbox from Mikayla Ekubo, secretary of ISNEC, entitled “America Today Inquiry.”
Audre’s breath catches and she quickly checks her phone for news of any bribery charges brought against Jesse Eastman on behalf of Tiffin Academy. Nothing. She opens the email.
Dearest Audre,it says.
Blah blah blah…found no evidence of wrongdoing… blah blah blah…interviewed the editor of the Best Boarding Schools list… informed us that they used a substantially different set of metrics this year and these new, nontraditional criteria led to Tiffin’s ranking at number two…
On behalf of ISNEC, I offer you heartfelt congratulations. Tiffin was ranked number two, fair and square.
