Their Vicious Games(5)
The Remingtons basically made me, at least I’m sure that’s how they see it. Now I need the Remingtons to extend another offer and remake me.
Right now though, his head is bent toward his girlfriend, face nearly pressed into the swanlike curve of her neck. I can just see a flash of his blue eyes as he whispers to her. Penthesilea shakes her head, and then she says something that passes through the open car windows, but I only get a few words: “…tradition, Pierce, but I’m right here and I want to go with you….”
Pierce and Penthesilea have been dating since fifth grade, when it wasn’t even called dating. They’d kissed on the Green, on May Day, near the flagpole, and never stopped. It was more common to see them walking together than apart, both long-limbed and moneyed, pale in the winter and freckled in the summer. They seemed happy. Happier than anyone. Tonight—not so much. It sounds like a fight, an old one. I want to lean in, curious, but I deliberately turn my back. It’s best if I can keep close without seeming like I’m eavesdropping, ready for any moment of opportunity that might reveal itself.
I tune back in to Toni and Charles’s conversation.
“You think I can convince Mom to add another session?” Toni asks. “It’s my last summer at camp and they’re doing Cabaret the second session.”
“No, it’s too much to coordinate that, your move-in at Tisch, and me to UPenn,” Charles says. He takes another long pull of Grey Goose, light eyes hazy.
I sneak a peek back at the car and see Pierce’s eyes widen and the tendons in his neck strain against skin. He moves his hand down as if he’s physically cutting Penthesilea off from saying any more, and then he climbs out of the car and stalks away from her. Away from me. Meanwhile, I can feel Esme’s eyes looking my way more and more.
“This isn’t working. I need to find a way to run into him,” I hiss in Toni’s ear.
Toni nods, guilt making tears well in her eyes.
I hurry away in the direction Pierce headed, clutching my White Claw and shaking off her misplaced remorse, determined before it’s too late to at least attempt my Hail Mary plan for correcting everything that went wrong. What I did wrong—not Toni.
Even if she was involved, ultimately it was my fault. Everything that went down was because I broke the rules. For others, those rules were more like guidelines, but for me, they were absolute. Suburbia, for all its faults, was forgiving. Edgewater was not. I had no business testing those rules. Except, I did.
Rule one: Wealth is power. If you don’t have it, keep your head down. I thought I’d gotten that one down to a science over the past twelve years.
Rule two: Knowledge is too—now that power I had in spades. But with knowledge comes the responsibility to know when to keep your mouth shut and when not to (see rule one). I chose not to and I chose wrong.
Esme has reminded me of how wrong I was every day since.
I can feel the weight of her stare again as I slip past. I want to glare back, not slink away with my tail tucked between my legs to avoid her ire. But here, and everywhere really, she has the upper hand and the rules are still in place, her entire clique ready to enforce them. The clique that Toni and I were once part of too.
* * *
I’d spent my entire life at Edgewater under the radar, and Esme had liked that. She knew she wouldn’t have to fight me too hard for attention. She could be the best at whatever she chose to be without worry of any of her “friends” eclipsing her. I’d chosen yearbook and student government, mockable electives in terms of social clout but good for college applications. I’d known her cruelty and her callousness, but always through the thin veneer of protection that being on her side allowed. All that attitude had always been directed at her enemies. And I was fine with that, ignoring what she did to others, because she became one of the few who didn’t have anything to say about the neighborhood I’d grown up in. Nothing good, but not anything particularly bad, either. Where I came from every day didn’t matter to her at all.
That all came to an end in mid-March. Spring was burning out our nostril hairs, pollen stinging violently at our eyes. It made Ivy Day easier for some. When they didn’t get into their top choice for one reason or another, the excuse of seasonal allergies hid their tears. But not me. I’d gotten into Yale, early action. All the acceptances that followed were my victory lap.
And then a month later, they were all gone.
Mistake one: I wasn’t paying attention.
Esme had been deferred from Yale in the early action round. In the midst of my win, I hadn’t been sympathetic enough. I hadn’t downplayed anything. I’d been blinded by my own shine.
It started with a quiet, “You’ll fill out their quota nicely,” over lunch.
I didn’t know how to respond, blinking at Esme as she said it through a wide smile. She’d been accepted to Dartmouth, after all. Johns Hopkins was her safety. But that wasn’t enough for Esme—things were never enough if they didn’t go her way, and worse if they went someone else’s.
The table held their breath and only released it when Esme turned to Toni and congratulated her on Tisch—which Toni hadn’t told anyone yet. Toni hadn’t even had the chance to share her own good news. Esme took that from her, after finding out from Charles, whom she’d started hooking up with. She was reminding her whose side to choose. Not that Toni listened.