Honor Code

by Kiersi Burkhart

  When he does, my hand slips, and that’s when the desk arm releases.

  Mr. Jordan is ravishingly handsome, like he should be on the cover of a romance novel. He has sharp amber-hazel eyes, deep oak skin, and black stubble. His shirt is very tight and he looks barely out of college.

  “Hello!” Mr. Jordan says.

  Oh, wow.

  We have a brief orientation on how to use the tablets, the rules, what he expects from us over the course of the year. It’s like any other class I’ve ever had. He sets out some basic terminology, and as he’s lecturing about the fundamental purpose of law and government, my heart swells with thrill.

  This is what I’m here for. Law. Justice. Truth. As I flip through the syllabus on my tablet, I stop to read the subheadings for “Due Process” and “Equal Protection.” We’re going to get in depth about constitutional rights—exactly what I need to get on the fast track to my dream job. Mr. Jordan has even listed Supreme Court cases in italicized letters as required readings.

  I’m ready.

  Class is over almost as soon as it started. I’d hoped to find Gracie waiting outside for me to help me get to my next class, but I have to make it alone. I’m so disoriented by the enormous campus that I only get to math one second before the bell rings.

  I’m frantically searching for an open seat when I spot Gracie sitting in the back row—saving a seat next to her. I fly into it.

  “Is this for me?” I ask. I figure out how to release the tablet right away this time.

  “Who else?”

  “How’d you know I had this class, too?”

  “You showed me your schedule, doof.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “So you had Mr. Jordan?”

  My neck and cheeks feel like a fire’s been lit underneath them. Gracie’s face breaks into a smile.

  “Oh my god,” she says. “You’re blushing so hard. He’s hot, right? I was told he was hot.”

  “He’s hot,” I confirm.

  “Can we switch first periods?”

  “It did put some sunshine in the day to have him for my first morning class,” I say, trying to sound over-the-top dreamy, and Gracie laughs at me.

  -----------------------

  The rest of the week looks mostly the same as the first day: stuffing dirty clothes into our closets and throwing the duvets back on our beds before inspection, rushing to Morning Prayer, then rushing to breakfast, then sitting through seven hours of classes before—finally—freedom.

  It’s the beginning of September, so the sun gazes down warmly at us as we walk from class to class, and it sticks around until late in the day.

  I could get used to this. I could get comfortable here.

  Gracie and I spend our afternoons out on the quad in front of Isabel House, absorbing the autumn sunshine, gazing over the pristine, glittering surface of the lake. We doodle in our sketchbooks, do homework, talk about our old schools. We’re always hypothesizing about the guy who was doing tai chi out in the graveyard. I’ve been keeping an eye out for him—blond, hot as a Texas day. One day we think we spot him walking down the main path, but he’s too far away for us to know for sure.

  “I feel like I know him from somewhere,” Gracie says, tilting her head. “But I can’t remember how.”

  “Maybe you were married in a past life,” I joke. “You could be soul mates!”

  While we’re fantasizing about our respective futures with Tai Chi Guy, some girls lie down near us in shorts and tank tops, basking on towels in the warm September sun.

  “It’s perfect, right?” I say to a Second Year girl I recognize from Isabel House. She turns her head and pulls down her sunglasses.

  “Yeah,” she says, noncommittal. “Perfect.”

  As she looks at me, I feel like I can see a memory churning in her head—the wrinkled flesh of my stomach, my ugly granny bra, Hayden pinching my skin.

  Needs Improvement.

  The two girls don’t say anything else to us, and after only a few minutes they pack up their towels and leave.

  I’m not even good enough for a polite conversation.

  Gracie puts a hand on my elbow. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Why won’t any of them talk to us?” I try not to sound whiny, but it comes out like that anyway.

  “Because they’re snobby bitches trying to haze you,” Gracie sighs. “Why does it matter?”

  “How can you not care?”

  She shrugs, flipping some of her straight black hair out of her face. “I’ve known girls like that my whole life. It’s all a game to them. You have to clear so many hurdles before they’ll give you the time of day. Do your hair like this, wear your clothes like that, do the activities they do—then, maybe, they’ll let you in.”

  So it’s a game. And games, if you try hard enough, can be beaten. It just takes a couple of tries to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Middle school was like that, too.

  “But trust me,” Gracie says, reading my face. “It’s not worth it once you get in. Nothing changes. They’re just as shitty as they were before.”

  I don’t say it, but I doubt that. Everyone is different once you get to know them. Even Hayden, I’m sure, is totally different with her friends. She was just giving us tough love, trying to thicken up our skin for the rest of our school career. You’d have to be something special to become Head Girl.

  What if I became Head Girl? Would I do the same thing to the First Year girls that Hayden did to me?

  Maybe. But I’d be benevolent. Lift them up instead of tear them down. I know Hayden’s just trying to do what’s best for us—and wouldn’t I do the same for my charges? Protect them. Teach them how to fit in, stay safe, do well.

  But that’s not going to happen unless I figure out the game’s rules. I remember a line I read out of the honor code, which is also printed in the back of the student handbook:

  Everything worthwhile takes time, work, and sacrifice. The sacrifices asked of us are often greater than we expect, but they are what make us true Edwardians.

  With some hard work, time, and sacrifice even I could become Head Girl someday.

  -----------------------

  On Thursday, our relaxation session on the quad is cut short by the first Family Dinner. We have to go inside and dress up—the dress code is formal. Gracie tries on a hundred outfits until she settles on a black button-up and gray pencil skirt, like we’re headed to a business meeting. I settle on a knee-length green dress with a leather belt around the middle, and feel fancy.

  We don’t get to pick where we sit at Family Dinner. We’re seated according to a chart with students from other dorms, one teacher per table to oversee us. In the brochures, Family Dinner is called “enrichment,” to “encourage mingling.” It’s supposed to help you build connections outside your dorm.

  Everyone has to eat in the main cafeteria—Hamilton Hall. It’s the first time I’ve had a meal without Gracie.

  Walking into Hamilton Hall is like traveling to a Viking banquet. Once you come through the anteroom, fifty-foot solid wood tables span the length of the cafeteria. Chandeliers hang from exposed raw wood rafters, casting all the plates and cutlery in a dim orange glow. At my table, I find the place settings already waiting with three different kinds of forks. I don’t know what that tiny one’s for, but it’s cute.

  I’m ready to make some school-sanctioned friends over an elaborate meal.

  Once we’re all seated, the faculty member assigned to our table asks pointed questions to get the conversation started. Her icebreaker is: “What’s your favorite planet?”

  Must be a science teacher. We each have to provide an answer. Almost everyone says “Pluto.”

  The teacher talks too fast, like she rehearsed her icebreakers a lot just to sound natural. I guess this is as awkward for her as it is for us. The older kids say that they heard the meal tonight was steak, and I’m drooling while the conversation goes on around me. Steak at the most exclusive private school in the Northeast
?

  Can’t wait.

  But when the meal arrives, the steaks are gray slabs on stark white plates, a pinch of wilted parsley on top, rimmed with crusty mashed potatoes and squishy carrots.

  The steak is cooked well-well-done and tastes like peppered rubber.

  At least they peppered it, I guess.

  -----------------------

  I knew Saturday Session would be a thing, but it’s different in person. It feels exactly like the previous five days, except we get to wake up an hour later and there’s no Morning Prayer.

  After breakfast, my schedule drops me into a classroom with fifteen other kids I’ve never met before. I was expecting something academic, but Saturday Session ends up being an hour of studying, bullshitting around, and talking about yearbook while our “advisor” pulls us aside one at a time to discuss our aspirations for college.

  Guess that’s the academic part.

  After advising, we’re ushered into Cath along with the rest of the student body. This must be why they let us skip this morning—they were planning something bigger and grander later on.

  Provost Portsmouth, all shivering jowls and red, patchy cheeks, climbs up to the podium.

  “I hope you’ve had a good first week,” he says into the mic. “Before we get too much farther, I want to do our annual review of the honor code together.”

  This honor code keeps coming up. Do they really care about it that much here? I mean, my middle school had a motto and a code of conduct. But nobody read it. And certainly nobody actually acted by it.

  But the provost is intent on making sure we all know it, and starts reading the entire thing out loud.

  I think this might be the entire point of the assembly. Gracie is shaking her head.

  Up in the front pews, the older kids start chanting the words of the honor code along with him. “No one has to prove they belong at Edwards,” the provost booms into the mic.

  “What one must prove is that they deserve to stay,” they echo back.

  Is that why the Head Girl grabbed my boobs? To prove I belonged here? That I deserve to stay?

  “When we have conflicts and disagreements, we will talk directly to each other first,” the provost says.

  “And we will respect each other even when we cannot agree,” the students chorus.

  Goosebumps run up and down my arms.

  “We have no siblings here, so we must be each other’s brothers and sisters.”

  The voices of students swell, filling the high ceiling of the cathedral.

  “We have no parents here, so we must parent each other.”

  After a few more verses, the honor code ends with one resonating, repeated line:

  “Keep this community sacred.”

  It sounds like a prayer.

  Chapter Three

  http://privateschoolnewb.tumblr.com

  Sept. 4, 2017

  Boarding school looks like:

  Never getting a word in edgewise.

  Every day here is like getting ready for a ball. Get up early. Put on my school face. Root around for an outfit I haven’t already worn that week. Listen. Take good notes. Wonder if someone in class will talk to me. (They never do.)

  I’ve tried to participate in my classes, but one thing I’ll say about private school kids: they are aggressive over-achievers. While the M.O. back in middle school was to sit around and do your best not to be the first one to talk, now it’s all about who can talk most. It’s impossible to get even a single thought across. These private school kids talk over you like it’s a competition to see who can get their noses the farthest up the teacher’s butt.

  It feels hopeless contributing anything useful in group discussions—or connecting with anyone at all. And as much as I love doing everything with my roommate (I do) . . . there must be a way to meet people here. People like me. People who don’t understand what this is all about. People who don’t “get it.”

  This campus is so huge, there has to be a place I can meet some people who are more like me.

  But, honestly, I’m probably giving up. I’m not even sure if those people do exist at all.

  I don’t want to give up.

  -----------------------

  One afternoon, my last class gets out early and I head to the quad to lounge while I wait for Gracie. I leaf through the packet the Welcome Wagon gave us.

  What did Hayden say that first night? Aside from telling me to try out for a sport—which, let’s get serious, is never going to happen—she made it sound like activities are where it’s at. That’s how you “get it.”

  I finally get up the courage to go to an extracurricular I’d seen listed in our packet: Drawing Club. Might not be a bad idea to find an activity to do instead of lying around on the quad. When Gracie appears, I tell her where I’m going.

  “There’s a club for drawing? Why do you need a club?”

  “It’s not about the club. It’s to meet people.”

  “Why do you need to meet people?”

  I struggle not to let out an exasperated sigh at her. “I just want to feel like . . . I don’t know. Like I belong. Why don’t you come with me?” I pick up her sketchbook and dangle it. “I mean, you’re twice the artist I am.”

  She takes the sketchbook back. “No, thanks. But go, enjoy your socializing.” She flops down in the grass. “I’ll be out here sucking up rays.”

  I don’t like leaving her behind, but at some point I have to make my own way. And artists, I’ve found, are good people. They’re thoughtful, and they don’t talk much when they’re working. Perfect place to look for . . . well, my place.

  The sign inside the art building says the drawing rooms are on the third floor. I make my way up two long flights of stairs.

  I peek into the first room. Students with easels sit in a circle, sketching. And sitting in the exact center?

  It’s Tai Chi Guy. He has that wavy hair like slightly cloudy sunshine, a jaw straight from a magazine, and he’s bare chested. He looks like a Roman sculpture on the stool, set in a come-hither pose. He’s obviously been posed by the teacher, because he looks both perfectly handsome and also slightly ridiculous.

  He notices me as soon as I walk into the room, but can’t turn his head or risk breaking the pose. I just stare at him, and he turns his eyes as far as they can go to stare back.

  A teacher sitting by the window stands up and approaches me.

  “Can I help you with something?” she says quietly, like we’re in a library.

  “Do you have space in your club?” I manage to ask, peeling my eyes away from Tai Chi Guy. “For a new member?”

  “It’s kind of late to join, and we’re looking pretty full.” She glances back at the packed circle of easels. “Show me something of yours. Today’s the intermediate level club, so if you’re good, maybe we could work it out.”

  I dig a sketchbook out of my backpack and show her some sketches I’ve done of a copse of trees, of the Edwards clock tower, of Gracie.

  She pauses on this last one, then holds the notebook out to me.

  “Is this your friend?”

  “Roommate.”

  “It’s really good. She has a nice smile.”

  I’d used a photo as a reference. Looking at it now, I unconsciously fixed her weird half-smile while I drew it. My version of Gracie looks symmetrical and bland.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the sketchbook back and shoving it into my backpack. She’s not even complimenting the real Gracie. It’s an untrue Gracie.

  “You can join the intermediate club,” the teacher says, smiling now. “But you’ll have to dig up your own chair. I don’t have any more.”

  I do, luckily, locate a chair in the closet, and an extra easel. I get my station organized and place my tiny sketchbook on the lip of the giant easel.

  Now I have a chance to look at him, really look at him. His eyes stay on mine as I start to draw him. Up close I can admire the silky-looking texture of his skin and get sucked into his blue-gre
en eyes. Little tendrils of hair trail down his chest all the way to his hips.

  The forty minutes of club race past as he changes positions a few times. The teacher announces it’s time for one last five-minute drawing.

  “I want you to stress motion in this one,” she tells us.

  Tai Chi Guy puts one arm in the air and leans forward on one knee, like he’s about to fly off and save the world.

  After it’s over, he quickly puts his shirt back on. I bend down to put my sketchbook in my backpack, trying to look casual even though my heart is racing at what I drew.

  “Can I see?” a voice asks. I look around, thinking he must be talking to somebody else. But Tai Chi Guy is standing next to my easel, staring right at me.

  “Uh, yeah?” I take the notebook back out and clasp it tight. I don’t want him to see how I’ve drawn him.

  “I’ve already seen the work of the other kids here. You’re new.”

  I hold the sketchbook facedown, thinking of how to distract him from looking at it. “You model often?” I ask.

  “Since I was a Second Year. It’s meditative for me.” He stands there, waiting. He’s clearly not going to forget about his request, so I hand over the sketchbook.

  We did ten gesture drawings, but the last one is my favorite. From my position in the room I got the profile of his valiant pose. Once I drew it, he was begging for a cape, so I added one. Then it demanded a mask over his eyes, because no hero goes around fighting crime without one.

  My first session of Drawing Club, and the hottest guy in the room catches me goofing off and drawing superheroes.

  “Wow.” Tai Chi Guy stares at this version of himself, eyebrows rising. My head fills with blood. He’s going to hate it. “I love it. A lot.” His eyes connect with mine. “Thanks for showing me. You like superheroes?”

  “I guess,” I manage to say. “For a while I thought I’d go into comics.”

  “But not anymore?”

  “Yeah, I dunno. It’s hard to make it in art.” And once I’d grown up a little, I’d realized what I wanted was to be a superhero, not draw one. That’s when Dad suggested I should become a lawyer. It’s the only way to actually take on the bad guys, he’d said. In court.