Rose had always been a controlled and guarded person, cautious in what she divulged about herself, protective of her work, her family, her reputation. But somehow this business with Crystal Academy was unmooring. Easy lies spilled from her mouth like water from a broken faucet.
And suppose there were interviews in the second round, and Emma Q showed up for the appointment with her mother and father. Would Bitsy Leighton ask Rose about the study in front of Gareth, forcing her to tell further lies on the spot—or cough out a humiliating confession? Once Leighton discovered that Rose had lied to her, would she hold this against Q?
Before Rose had taken ten steps up the mall her phone buzzed.
So what did you learn? Anything useful?
She stared at Samantha’s message for a moment before replying.
???
From your appointment.
Rose stopped walking and texted back a question: What appointment?
With BITSY, you sneaky bitch.
She almost dropped her phone. No one else knew she was meeting with Leighton this afternoon. Not Samantha, not Lauren, not Azra, not even Gareth. Leighton must have slipped the news to Sam, or someone who knew her.
Her thumb hesitated, suspended above the screen when the next message arrived.
Look to your right!
She lifted her head and saw a flapping hand through the plate glass window of the Aspen Room, a spa across from Higher Grounds. There, less than twenty feet away, Samantha sat with one foot soaking in a pedicure basin, the other in mid-buffing at the hands of an aesthetician.
Sam held up her phone and blew her a kiss—followed by a knowing smirk, her smooth face twisted and cynical. Rose smiled weakly before turning away.
When she checked her email in the car, a message from Bitsy Leighton already waited in her in-box: R, Thx for meeting today. I’ll be in touch soon about follow-up. Can’t wait to hear more. BL
Rose looked up into the cold half-light of the parking garage, feeling exposed. She wanted to erase, redo, rewind. Fly against the earth’s rotation, pull against time. She bent her forehead to the steering wheel and already sensed her stupid bit of deceit festering somewhere, surging and angry, like a boil under the skin.
THIRTY-TWO
XANDER
Charlie Unsworth-Chaudhury was hitting baseballs into a new net in his backyard. Every time he hit a ball at the net the ball bounced back to his feet, and then he picked it up and hit it against the net again. And again. And again.
Xander tried to think of something that would be more boring to do. He couldn’t. It just wasn’t an interesting pattern. You would never practice the same chess move thirty-one times in a row like
Qc2xh7
Qh7−c2
Qc2xh7
Qh7−c2
Qc2xh7
Qh7−c2
Qc2xh7
Qh7−c2
and so on.
But baseball wasn’t chess. It had different structures, different reasons for repeating things. He watched Charlie hit the ball into the net thirty-one more times then went inside and found Aidan playing SoccerPro19 in the den.
“Yo,” said Aidan.
“Yo,” said Xander.
“Wanna play SwordQuest?”
“Okay.”
Aidan switched out the console, and they started slicing and dicing other beings. The twins owned the adult version of the game. Lots of blood and body parts and half-naked ladies. Something Xander’s mother would never let him have.
Xander died on purpose. “Gotta poop,” he said.
“TMI,” said Aidan. He kept slaughtering things as Xander stood and walked upstairs.
* * *
—
Xander went into the twins’ bathroom and locked the door. From his pocket he removed the two new toothbrushes he’d bought at CVS. Last time he was over here he’d checked the brand and colors to make sure he got the right ones. Aidan’s was a Crest Extra Cleaning with soft bristles and a blue swatch on the handle. Perfect match.
He unwrapped the new one, smeared toothpaste on the bristles, wet them, and brushed his teeth. He rinsed it but not very well, then put it in the holder.
He did the same thing with Charlie’s current toothbrush. A Crest Extra Cleaning with soft bristles and a red swatch on the handle. Another perfect match.
Once the new toothbrushes were back in place, he sealed the old toothbrushes inside sandwich bags. He peed, flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and headed back downstairs.
Two down, three to go.
* * *
—
Sonja didn’t wear much when she was lounging around the house. That day the silky thing she had on barely covered her buttocks area. When she fed Roy, she pushed her top down and just sat there in the living room without covering anything up. Xander had once asked his mother why the twins’ stepmom showed herself like that. “She’s Austrian,” his mother had said.
Usually Xander looked away, but right now he had to pay attention, watching her from the darkened staircase.
After she burped Roy, Sonja took out a machine and hooked it up to one of her shabangas. Roy scuttled around on the floor for a few minutes until Sonja had half filled a bottle and turned off the pump. She wrote something on the lid with a Sharpie and put the bottle in the refrigerator. Then she took Roy up for his nap, leaving the door to his room open a few inches.
Once she was singing to him, Xander crept up the stairs and down the hall and into the master bedroom. He looked around for a few seconds, then went to one of the nightstands at the side of the king-size bed. He opened a drawer.
A red box of condoms. LifeStyles brand. The box was open and half-empty.
Xander thought about it. The Unsworths didn’t empty their trash that often, not like his mother. The house was pretty dirty, actually kind of disgusting. So he might get lucky.
He walked into the bathroom and squatted down in front of the trash can and pushed aside wads of tissue until he found it all the way near the bottom; or rather them. Two used condoms, clumped together. They must have been in there for weeks.
Xander took out a sandwich bag. Using a piece of tissue paper, he pincered the condoms between two fingers. He shook them gently until one of them unclumped and fell back into the trash can.
He held the other one up in front of his face. The condom was interesting. It was dry on the outside, but inside he could see Beck’s semen. It looked like spit, like the kind of big loogie Charlie hocked when he wanted to gross someone out.
Xander sniffed the condom. Rubber and something else. He sealed it in a bag and shoved the bag in his pocket as he stood. On the way out of the bathroom he swiped a pair of tweezers from the medicine cabinet.
Three down, two to go.
* * *
—
Sonja was still putting Roy to bed. Singing one of her German songs, quite badly out of tune. He could also still hear the thwack of Charlie’s bat outside. And the sound of Aidan scoring kills in the basement.
He went down to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Sonja kept her milk in the door, on the bottom shelf. He squatted down and felt each bottle until he found the warm one, with that day’s date written on the lid. He took out a sandwich bag and put the small bottle inside and slipped it into his pocket. Which was getting kind of full.
Four down, one to go.
* * *
—
The twins were playing SoccerPro19 in the den. In the living room Sonja was asleep on the sofa, sprawled across the cushions with an arm over her eyes and her knees spread open. Xander tried not to look as he walked past her, but he couldn’t help it. He felt really glad his mother didn’t lie around like that, almost naked. Glad his house was clean and orderly.
Upstairs Roy’s door was cracked open an inch. The hinges squeaked, but just a little.
>
Inside it was dark and cool—and clean. A ceiling fan made it windy, and there was soft baby music playing. Roy was dressed in a one-piece footie jumper and sleeping on his tummy. He had a blanket clutched in his right hand. His left hand was open and down by his side.
Thick hair for a baby. Wavy, like Beck’s, but yellow, like Sonja’s. Which made sense.
Xander slipped out the tweezers he’d swiped from the master bathroom. He reached down into the crib, pincered a few of Roy’s hairs near the scalp, and pulled.
THIRTY-THREE
CH’AYÑA
When she went to close the back of the truck, Ch’ayña saw them. Two brown paper bags, bulging with clothes. She pulled the near one to her chest and tugged on the hem of a silk skirt, fingered the linen sleeve of a dress.
“What’s this?” she called out, but Atik was already in the cab. She walked around to the passenger side. “What’s all this?” she demanded, shoving the bag at him.
“Ms. Zellar gave them to us,” he said. “We’re supposed to take them for Mamay.”
She shifted the bag to her hip and dug through. Scarves, a leather jacket, shirts of thin silk, a nightgown. “Your mamay won’t wear these ugly things. They’re useless. Take them back to her.”
“We can’t.”
“What, they were a gift?”
Atik shook his head. “They’re a sorry-for-you because of her elbow. Like the coins you give to a man on the street.”
“I never give to those men, and you shouldn’t either, Atikcha. Keep your money!”
“We have to take the clothes,” he said, looking tired.
As they drove off she let him know what she thought of the gift that wasn’t a gift. “And now we’ll have to stop at the dumpster.”
“Turn right, Awicha,” said Atik.
“That’s the wrong way.”
“Turn right. I’ll show you.”
So she turned right.
* * *
—
That night she told Silea what had happened next.
“Your son had an idea,” said Ch’ayña. “‘We’ll sell them,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep two or three things so Mamay can wear them and show Ms. Zellar she’s wearing them when she goes to clean again. The others, we sell.’ So we brought the bags to a store there by the middle city park. You know the place.”
“BloomAgain,” Silea said.
“They sell used clothes but only those that still look new. I told Atik I’d wait in the truck, but he made me come in the store with him because he’s too young to sell them himself. He took the bags to the front and talked to the girl behind the counter. She was wearing a tight short shirt, and you could see her navel with a ring in it there on her bare stomach when she spread out the clothes. And there was one sweater she looked at for a long time, a wool thing the color of turquoise, no sleeves, collar cut like a lizard’s neck. I thought she might want it for herself and I warned Atik, but then the girl asked him about the sweater. They both started laughing, and I poked him and asked him to explain. Because she knows the Zellars, he said. One time she borrowed the sweater from the missus and wore it herself. How about that?”
Silea’s eyes widened in horror.
“No no no!” Ch’ayña clasped her daughter’s good arm. “Don’t worry, the Zellars won’t fire us. I promise. Atik explained it all. The girl wants us to bring in more bags, as many as she’ll give us. The people who shop there pay almost full price for clothes like these. The girl makes money too, when she sells the clothes. She’s looking out for herself and our Atikcha is looking out for us. It was his idea. And look.”
She reached into her bag and held out the bills. “Five hundred, Silea. A week’s worth of pay for a few bags of ugly Zellar clothes.”
Silea pinched the bills between the thumb and finger at the stubby end of her cast and handed them back with a twenty separated out. “Give him this,” she said. “Let him get the origami papers he likes.”
Ch’ayña nodded. “Nice idea.”
Silea’s phone rang. Ch’ayña went to the toilet, and when she came back, Silea was still talking. When she put the phone down, she had an odd look on her face.
“What is it?” Ch’ayña asked.
“It was a lady in Crystal. They want Atik to come to a meeting. They want us both there with him.”
“What meeting?”
“It’s a big one, about the new school.”
“Why him?”
Silea’s face, bathed in the dim light of a floor lamp, shimmered with pride. “They want us, Mamay. All three of us.”
“But why?”
“Because of who we are.”
As Silea explained she nodded along, but the ugliness of the request took root in her thoughts. She could feel the whole thing begin to further entwine them. The school, the town and its little Crystals. She wanted to say to her daughter, Don’t you get it? Don’t you see what they’re doing here? Because they were using their Atikcha, she could already feel it. Folding him up and changing him, turning him into something he wasn’t, just like he did with his papers. An elm tree with a single delicate limb reaching up to the sky.
And soon that limb will break, Silea, like your elbow, Ch’ayña thought grimly. Then you’ll see.
A Touch of Tessa:
One Girl's Survival Guide to Junior Year
A Video Blog
Episode #172: TESSARACKS!!!
. . . 48 views . . .
[Tessa on stool at sales counter in BloomAgain.]
TESSA: So we’re in the shop today, and I have to say, you guys, this place rocks. It’s like flyover Goodwill meets New York haute couture. I mean, look at this stuff. [Camera reverses to show overflowing bags and boxes of clothes on counter.] Sometimes we get these big bags of random donations from the wife of some rich guy who died, and it’ll be like a thousand dollars’ worth of just silk ties, or five dollars’ worth of underwear, which we can’t resell anyway. Other times you’ll get these women coming in thinking they can actually consign these suits with 1990-era lapels, like it’s Old Lady Road Show. [Shop door chimes.] Hold up, you guys.
[Sets phone camera-side down on counter; murmurs with a customer; camera reverses on Tessa.]
Okay, back, and kind of excited today, and it’s all because of Azra, the owner. So for a while now, since maybe the second week I started working here, I’ve been lifting stuff from the donations pile. Not too much, maybe one piece per shift, say a shirt or a dress or a pair of pants I like the look of. But don’t worry, I’m not a klepto, because I don’t wear the ones I take or try to sell them somewhere else. What I do is, I take them to the sewing machine in the back room and sort of—cut them up, do these alterations, like put an appliqué on some pants, or maybe I’ll dart a waistline of a dress so it’s more formfitting. Or maybe I combine three things to make an outfit, like I’ll put together stuff from different designers to make a new dress, or a sick pair of pants. Usually I’ll sketch out my ideas ahead of time, in here. [Displays sketchbook.] Sometimes I take what I make for myself. But usually I hide my stuff on the racks to see if anyone will buy it, and know what? They always do. Just because it’s different, you know?
[Door chimes.] Hold up. [Raises voice; camera wobbles.] No, that’s okay, we’re all set. Thanks. [Back to Tessa.] Just UPS. So anyway, today, right before my shift started, Azra said she needed to talk to me and I was like, I’m toast, she’s definitely firing me. But guys, that’s not what happened at all. Turns out she’s known what I’ve been doing all along. Not only that, but she’s been watching to see what would happen with my rags, keeping track of what sells and for how much. She said she’s looked at my drawings, and she thinks—she actually said she thinks I have a “gift.” So anyway, this is the amazing part: she wants me to put together my own actual fashion line that I can sell in the store. Nothing major, just nine
or ten things to start out with, but I’m supposed to come up with my own logo, and get the clothes ready, and then she’s going to set a whole rack aside for my line. “My line,” like, can you believe that? For my brand name I’ve come up with TessaRacks, like the tesseracts from A Wrinkle in Time, just—something out of this world. You like it? Azra loves it. And you know what, guys? It feels like the first time in forever that anybody’s believed I’m capable of something besides abusing their kids or swiping Jäger bottles from their liquor cabinets.
[Wipes tears, blows nose.] So that’s the good news. The bad news is, when I show everything to my mom and tell her, she’s all like, “Fashion, Tessa? Really? You can’t get into something more practical?” and she gives me one of her chewy-chipmunk looks. So predictable, even just the way she said “Really?” made me want to rip her lungs out, and of course the bitch is wearing khakis and a tucked-in polo shirt, so I’m like, “Yes, really, Lauren. Fashion, Lauren. It’s called style, Lauren. You should try it sometime, maybe stop dressing like some IT guy on a Best Buy commercial.” Which she, um, didn’t particularly like. Fighting ensued, as my brother would say. [Door chimes.] Gotta go, you guys. Love you!
The Gifted School Page 19
