Page 107 of All These Beautiful Strangers
“I guess they had to sell the house,” Drew said. “And my tuition is next on the chopping block. They were going to pull me out midsemester. I found out a few days ago.”
“Is that why you’ve been giving me the runaround with spring enrollment?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” Drew said. “I just . . . I didn’t know how to tell you what was really going on.”
“What about scholarships?” I asked.
“They give out all of the financial aid in the fall,” Drew said. “I couldn’t apply until next year. And anyway, it wouldn’t be the same.”
It hit me then. Drew had gotten caught on purpose to save face. She would rather have gone out with a bang—the whole school believing she was caught up in some big cheating scandal with the A’s—than with a whimper, the whole school knowing her family was financially ruined. She’d chosen infamy over ignominy.
“Does anyone else know?” I asked. I couldn’t help but wonder if she had at least confided in Stevie.
Drew shook her head. “Just you,” she said.
I reached out and fingered the soft strap of the Chloé dress. I remembered that day she’d bought it like it was yesterday. Drew and I had wandered in and out of boutiques in our sundresses and sandals, delirious with too much sleep and sunburns. Drew had pretended a French accent and hit on some thirty-year-old shop clerk in broken English. She’d gotten his number, just to prove that she could. Later, at some hole-in-the wall noodle place, we’d called him. Drew told him, in the elementary French we’d learned in Madame Le Fevre’s class, her favorite food (Je mange les noodles. J’adore les noodles), while across the table I bit my lip to stifle my giggles. I’d tried to go back to that noodle place last summer, but I’d been unable to find it again.
“You should keep the dress,” I said. “You’ve got the legs for it, not me.”
“Yeah, you are like, almost legally a midget,” Drew said.
I laughed and pushed her. “You’re such a brat for leaving me,” I said, swallowing the ball of emotion that had clawed its way up my throat.
“Puh-leeze,” Drew said. “You’re going to be big shit now. You’ll be the only junior living in a single. And you can push the beds together and have a queen.”
“Mega bed,” I said.
Drew laughed. “And mega closet if you want,” she said. She shook her head. “The things I do for you.”
The next day at lunch, our table was uncharacteristically somber. News had spread across campus overnight that Drew had been caught stealing Mr. Franklin’s trig exam. Her parents had already arrived on campus and Drew had been called away to Headmaster Collins’s office half an hour ago.
“Damn, who died?” Zachery asked as he set his lunch tray down and looked around at all of us.
“You’re such a dick,” I said.
“Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood,” he said as he sat down.
“Can’t be done,” Stevie said. “This whole thing royally sucks.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Crosby asked.
Crosby was usually the life of the party, but these were the first words he’d spoken all day.
“What do you mean?” Stevie asked.
“I mean, at the disciplinary hearing this afternoon, what are you going to say?”
Stevie grew red in the face. She looked down at her plate and moved her peas around with the prongs of her fork. “The rules are very clear on this,” Stevie said. “The disciplinary hearing is really just a formality at this point.”
“So basically you’re going to get up there and tell the headmaster to expel your best friend.”
“I’m going to follow the rules,” Stevie said, “which are always the same for everyone. Or, at least, they should be.”
“Maybe if you weren’t such a little priss, you’d have more friends,” Crosby said.
“Hey, cool it,” Yael said. “None of this is Stevie’s fault.”
Stevie looked like she might cry. “I’m going to go get some water,” she said so quietly I almost couldn’t hear her.
