I, Claudia

by Mary McCoy

  However, the testimony I have heard today makes me question whether a governing body like the Honor Council should exist, whether you have, through your own treachery and bad faith, forfeited your right to self-governance.

  I believe that you have.

  As Imperial Day Board President, I have no choice but to find Ms. McCarthy NOT GUILTY of all charges.

  As Imperial Day Board President, I have no choice but to take to the rest of the Board members my recommendation that the Honor Council be abolished for a minimum of four years until the lot of you cycle through this institution and go off to poison other wells, hopefully a long way away from here.

  I have nothing else to say.

  Get out of my sight.

  So, unknown future reader, student of history, that was my trial, which raised as many questions as it answered and left Mr. Mathers wishing he’d never asked in the first place.

  While I was on the Senate, I did as much as I could. During my time as Honor Council president, I accomplished only one thing, but it was the thing that needed to be done: I brought down the empire.

  That spring, I ran for Senate president after Hector announced he would not seek reelection. Between his dad and his time at Imperial Day, politics no longer held any good associations for him. This is a great loss, for which I partly blame myself, because Hector was one of the good ones. Twenty years from now, he’ll probably be curing cancer while Cal Hurt and Chris Gibbons are dumping toxic waste into the ocean and laughing about it.

  I remember a poster that Ms. Yee had on the wall of her classroom. Sitting at my desk listening to her spin stories about Assyrian kings and Roman emperors, I hadn’t understood it, but now I do.

  The poster said, “A true historian will always rise superior to the political disturbances of her day.”

  When it was all over, when the smoke had cleared and I found myself left standing, I resolved that even if I was no longer a historian in practice, I would try to remain a historian in my soul. I would move in the circles where I needed to move, I would run the Imperial Day Academy to the best of my ability, I would pay attention to the things that went on here, and I would tell you about them.

  So that maybe there is a chance, there is a hope, that when nothing makes sense, my story will speak clearly and boldly to you and show you a way out of whatever mess you’re in.

  Maybe it will show you how to be a better person than I know how to be.

  XX,

  Claudia

  Ephemera

  Dear Hector,

  The person I lie to the most isn’t myself. It’s you. It was always you.

  I’m not expecting you to say I loved you, too, or I’m sorry, I had no idea, which is exactly how you’d tell me you didn’t love me because it’s the kindest way you could think of to say it.

  Either way, it wouldn’t be fair to you, so while I’m glad you know the truth now, I think it would be best if we pretended it never happened.

  I wish I could say I had something to do with the way my trial turned out, but the truth is, I didn’t know what people were going to say up there. I had no idea Zelda Parsons killed the turtles. I really believed that Cal had something—a little something, but something nonetheless—to do with Soren’s death. I didn’t know about what Esme said or what you did or felt like you didn’t do.

  So what do I know now that I didn’t know then?

  I know that in a parallel universe with fewer complications and disasters, where I have room in my life for a great love or at least a friend with benefits, Kian Sarkosian and I are a terrifying, fierce power couple.

  I know that there is no one less deserving of the second chances he has received than that hydrocodone-dealing douchebag Chris Gibbons.

  I know that if Zelda Parsons had a little more spine and a little less psychosis, she’d destroy us all.

  I know that Esme Kovacs was more of a monster than I gave her credit for.

  I know that Livia had better intentions than I gave her credit for, even if she was still a monster.

  I know that we are, all of us, monsters in our own way.

  Except you, Hector.

  Did I know that you were the one who dropped Soren off at home the night he died? No. What I do know is that if you hadn’t gotten the weight of that decision off your chest, it would have ruined your life.

  I don’t blame you for what happened, Hector.

  You might believe that if you’d left him at the party or invited him to spend the night with you, he’d still be alive. But what if he hadn’t gone to the party? What if his parents hadn’t gone out of town? What if I’d invited him to go to New York with me? What if he’d never gotten sober in the first place?

  I know that if you spend too much time asking yourself questions you have no way of finding out the answer to, you’ll go crazy.

  I know that a person can be beautiful and Zen and sober and true, and still make a stupid, horrible decision that fucks up all those true and beautiful things irrevocably. I know that now.

  I also know that a person can be vile and false, a liar and a manipulator to the depths of their heart, and get away with it.

  But I’ve always known that.

  Mr. Mathers never took the girls very seriously as suspects in what happened to Cal, and he should have.

  I’m dangerous even though I’ve never been violent. Zelda is violent without being dangerous (to humans). Esme is living proof you can hurt people without being violent or dangerous. And Livia? I’ve always said Livia is capable of anything.

  I went over to Livia’s house after the trial. I suppose you could call what I went over there to do “blackmail,” but I thought of it as more of a truce.

  When I knocked on the door, it was almost like she’d been expecting me.

  “Tell me how you did it,” I said. No sense in pretending this was a social call.

  For a moment, I thought she was going to close the door without saying a word, but then a little smile played across her lips.

  “I’ll show you,” she said.

  She led me through her house, out the back door, and into the yard. There was a shed tucked away behind a cluster of lantana and lavender bushes, and Livia produced a key and opened the door.

  “After you,” she said, and I stepped inside to see a riding lawnmower, jugs of organic fertilizer, terra-cotta pots. It was only after Livia had stepped in behind me, turned on the single, bare overhead light bulb, and shut the door behind us that I noticed the bags of peat and potting soil stacked in the corner.

  Every one of them was burst open, the plastic flayed into strips.

  Livia picked up a crowbar from the corner of the shed and grinned at me before lifting it over her head. I only had time to gasp and throw my hands up in front of my face (like that would have done anything to help), before she brought the crowbar down on the stack of bags with a meaty thwack and sent a shower of dirt in my direction. I felt little chunks of it pelt my hands and chest.

  “I was too angry that time with you,” Livia said, as I brushed the dirt off my front and tried to keep my hands from shaking.

  She was talking about that day in the Honor Council room when she’d thrown the mug at my head and kicked me in the gut. Her emotions had gotten in the way that day. It was only after the initial burst of rage had faded that her blows started to land. Once there was cruelty and calm intent behind those kicks and punches, Livia could hurt me.

  “So you practiced,” I said.

  “Then I put a note in his locker telling him to meet me there. Signed it with Ruby Greenberg’s name.”

  “I’ll bet that made it easier when he showed up,” I said.

  “You have no idea,” she said.

  Cal never said who’d cracked him on the head with the shower fixture, and without his word, there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute or punish anyone for his attack, and so the person who actually did it—the only person who’d never been a suspect in the first place—got away with it.

&
nbsp; Livia always did have a way of coming out clean.

  When I think about what I know now, and how I’m never going to tell anyone about it, I wonder, does that make me as bad a person as Cal?

  At my trial you said that I deserved to be happy. You said that the problem with the story Mr. Mathers was telling was that it was the wrong one.

  The thing is, Hector, I think you’re telling the wrong story about me, too.

  Maybe you think I was pulled unwillingly into politics and had no choice but to stick around until I’d saved the school from itself.

  Or maybe you think I got caught up in the power, and that now I need someone—that I need you—to save me from myself.

  But if that’s the kind of story you think this is, then fuck you either way, Hector Estrella.

  This is the story of how I survived.

  This is the story of how I evolved, how one day I crawled out of the ocean up onto dry land and became the political animal I was born to be.

  I’m not like you, Hector. I’m never going to be the kind of leader that everyone loves. When you’re someone like me, there’s always someone gunning for you, always someone who thinks that you’re easy pickings or that you don’t deserve what you have. I don’t look like much, but neither did Abraham Lincoln, or Joan of Arc, or Charles I. A postmaster; a farmgirl; a stammering, limping invalid. That’s what they used to be until the day they decided to step up and embrace their fates.

  I used to be a historian, but now I’m something bigger than that, more important, and I’ll keep going as long as I can, doing this, surviving, and you don’t get to save me, Hector Estrella.

  And just like Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Charles I, King Wenceslas, Julius Caesar, Ashurnasirpal II, Richard Nixon, and all the rest of them, when the inevitable knife between the shoulder blades comes for me, I’ll be ready for it every single time.

  Right up until the time I’m not.

  I know what happened to all those people, Hector. I’m not an idiot, but this is what I want, and you don’t get to save me.

  You don’t get to save me.

  I might not be brave enough to give you this letter. I might just leave it in a file tucked away with the rest of the Imperial Day records that no one’s ever going to look at. If someone does, though, I hope it’s someone like the person I used to be back when I first met you, back when all of this could have turned out differently. I hope I can explain it to that person even if I can’t bring myself to explain it to you.

  I loved you. I’m sorry I loved you. I’m not sorry for any of it.

  Which part is the truth? All of it, every word, and Hector, that’s the truest thing I’ve told you so far.

  xx,

  Claudia

  Acknowledgments

  Alix Reid, thank you for your wonderful guidance on this project, for helping me to untangle Claudia’s brain snakes and understand her crooked little heart. You lit the path, then let me wander where I needed to wander to get where I needed to go.

  Patricia Nelson, you saw me through this book’s unanswered questions, off-the-rails moments, and acts of turtle murder. Thank you for letting me go over the top, and then reeling me back in.

  Leah DiVincenzo and John Woolf, thank you for being the kind of friends who would lend your brains, your turns of phrase, and even your names to this novel, and thank you for being the kind of teachers I would follow into battle.

  Angela Serranzana and Mark Walker, I am indebted to you for your sharp insights and notes, and for giving me perhaps the greatest piece of advice on character development that I’ve ever received. Kian Sarkosian and Soren Bieckmann are five times cooler because of you.

  Thank you to Marc Weitz, whose thoughts on the Nicolas Cage and John Travolta vehicle Face/Off brought much-needed focus to my world-building, and to Vi Ha, who came through with wisdom, kindness, and origami tutorials.

  Thank you, John Darnielle, for your words and music. For every character in this book, there is a Mountain Goats song that helped me understand them better.

  Shelby, I started writing this book when you were 4 weeks old, in the strange, manic little snatches of time between your naps. The years I spent writing this book were the first years I spent with you, and they’ve been the happiest ones of my life. You inspire me.

  Brady Potts, thank you for every bit of back porch conversation, couch deliberation, and train car correspondence that brought this book to life. Even if you were the only person who ever read I, Claudia, that would have been reason enough for me to write it.

  Topics for Discussion

  Why is it important to the story that Claudia considers herself a historian? How does it affect how she narrates the story?

  How is the book formatted, and why? How does it affect the reader’s experience?

  How does Maisie and Claudia’s relationship change throughout the book? What causes it to change?

  Do you think Claudia uses humor and sarcasm as a defense mechanism, to disguise her discomfort, or for another reason? What are some examples?

  Consider the fortune-teller scene early in the book. What parts of the prediction come true, and how?

  Do you think Claudia’s actions are influenced by a desire for power or something else entirely? Why?

  How would you describe the differences between the Honor Council and the Senate?

  Is Claudia a reliable narrator? Why or why not?

  How is Soren’s death a turning point for Claudia or any of the other characters?

  Describe the differences between the “reigns” of Augustus, Ty, Cal, and Claudia. Which would you say is the best?

  Why does Cal run for Honor Council president? Why does Livia?

  Do any of the characters make themselves completely unredeemable or unforgiveable? Are any of them fully “good”?

  Why do you think Livia tells Claudia to run for Senate? Why does Claudia decide to run despite her negative feelings toward Livia?

  In chapter 12, Claudia says, “My sister needed a friend. My sister needed someone to look out for her. My sister needed solidarity. . . . I would run for Maisie.” Do you think these are true statements? Does Maisie need Claudia or is it the other way around?

  The murdering of the turtles is a criminal act. Why does Dr. Graves hand the case over to the Honor Council rather than the police?

  Does Claudia’s treatment of Kian fit in with what we think we know of her character? Does it seem fair?

  How does the bullying Claudia faces affect her?

  Who is the most likely suspect to be Cal’s attacker? Was it surprising to find out who did it?

  Do you think the final verdict at the trial is sufficient? Why or why not?

  Is Claudia’s final letter to Hector a satisfying ending? What is left unresolved, and why?

  About the Author

  Mary McCoy was born and raised in western Pennsylvania. She holds degrees from Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son, and works as a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. She is also the author of Dead to Me and Camp So-and-So.