Bree’s mouth dropped open in shock. Leering at her from across the admissions office reception area was a more masculine, less flamboyantly dressed clone of Jaylen Harrison. Same aftershave-commercial-handsome face, same butterscotch complexion, same slicked back hair, same cocky smile, same perverted twinkle in his eye. He walked over and held out his hand, a gold monogrammed pinky ring flashing on his right hand. “I’m your tour guide. Name’s Cameron Harrison. Call me Cam. You may know my cousin Jaylen. He told me all about you. And of course I’ve seen your pictures on the Net.”
Oh, God.
Bree mustered a smile. Jaylen had nearly deflowered her in a stall in a ladies’ room in the old Barneys building during her first dressy benefit party that fall, and Bree was still a little scared of him. But the Harrisons were a powerful Upper East Side family notorious for their philanthropy and decadence and the wild ways of their fucked-up children. If Jaylen’s cousin liked it at Croton, then it was probably just the sort of school Bree was looking for.
“Don’t be put off by how straitlaced everything seems here, Brianna,” Cam advised, his white teeth flashing. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his cool light blue trousers, which he was wearing with straw flip-flops—very prep-school-boy-goes-to-the-beach. “We basically party, like, eighty percent of the time, sleep fifteen percent of the time, eat five percent of the time, and study whenever we have time left over, which is, like, never.”
Bree grinned. That sounded fine—just fine.
Cam Harrison pressed his lips together and cocked his head as if he were sizing her up. “Come on. There are some people I’d like you to meet.”
Her heart racing with eager anticipation, Bree followed him out of the building and down a long sloping pebbled walkway that curved behind a row of pretty brick buildings with black wooden shutters in the windows. The walkway ended in a narrow dirt path that led along the banks of a quaint little duck pond and into the heavily forested woods. “It’s just a little bit farther,” Cam explained, his flip-flops flapping against his heels.
Bree hesitated, wondering what on earth the people he wanted her to meet were doing in the middle of the woods. Was she about to be a part of one of those peculiar boarding school traditions she’d read so much about, like bonfires and midnight skinny-dipping? In the middle of the pond a mallard with a dark green head was quacking loudly at a demure brown duck, trying to get her attention. Bree couldn’t help but marvel at how strange it was to have spent a whole day in the country after spending her entire life until now on the island of Manhattan.
“Where are we going?” she called to Cam as she hurried to keep up.
Before he could answer, a girl in a red bikini stepped onto the path about fifty feet ahead of them. “Hey, Harrison!” She shouted so loudly, the leaves seemed to shake in the trees overhead. “You and your new girlfriend better get your asses over here before we finish all the you-know-what!”
“Coming!” Cam shouted back. He chuckled at Bree. “Come on. You know you want to.”
He even sounded like his cousin.
Now that she was sure she and Cam weren’t going to be alone in the woods, Bree felt more confident about following him. It was cooler in the shade of the trees and smelled of wet moss. All of a sudden they came upon a group of five guys and four girls, sitting in a circle, wearing bathing suits or shorts and T-shirts, the rest of their clothes scattered at the base of a nearby tree. Some of them were drinking cans of beer, some of them were smoking cigarettes, and all of them looked extremely happy to be there.
The girl in the red bikini—skinny and light skinned, with long shiny brown hair and beautiful eyes—held out her palms to them. “One more minute and you-know-who was gonna come along and nab these,” she told them with a bright smile. Bree stared at the girl’s palms, which were dotted with little white pills.
“April, you're awesome.” Cam scooped a tab of Ecstasy out of the girl’s hands and popped it in his mouth. “Go on, Brianna,” he urged Bree, pointing at April’s outstretched palms. “The quicker you eat one, the quicker you’ll fall in love with me.” He grinned devilishly. “I mean, our school.”
Oh, really?
Bree had been offered drugs before. She’d even been high once, with Kaliq Braxton, the first day they’d met, in Sheep Meadow in Central Park. She’d fallen in love with him that day and had stayed in love with him until he broke her heart on New Year’s Eve. Probably if she hadn’t been high, she’d have understood that she and Kaliq had only just met and that she needed to get to know him a lot better before she kissed him.
She reached out to pinch one of the tabs of Ecstasy out of April’s hand with no intention of actually ingesting it. It was so tiny, no one would even notice. “Yum,” she cooed, pretending to be delighted as she cupped her hand over her mouth and let the teeny pill fall past her chin and cascade down into her ample double-D-sized cleavage.
We always knew it would come in handy!
“We were about to play Duck, Duck, Goose,” one of the beer-drinking guys announced with a completely straight face, as if he were trying to organize a friendly touch-football scrimmage. He was wearing nothing but a pair of electric blue bike shorts, and he looked like a bicycle racer, with ropy muscles, a shaved head, and intense dark eyes. “Wanna play?”
“Yeah!” Cam Harrison responded enthusiastically. He wrapped his arm around Bree’s waist and kissed the top of her head. “My little cucumber,” he murmured affectionately.
Bree had the feeling the tab of E Cam had just taken was not his first of the afternoon. She was about to shrug him away when she realized that she was going to have to at least pretend she was on Ecstasy; otherwise, it would be obvious she hadn’t taken it. Problem was, she didn’t even know how long it was supposed to take to start working. “Yay!” she squeaked. “Let’s play!”
They joined the circle and sat down between a chubby boy sporting plaid Bermuda shorts and the muscular guy in the blue bike shorts. Everyone was grinning so hard, it looked like their teeth hurt. “I’ll go first,” April volunteered. “But first I think we’re going to need some of this.” She passed around a few packets of gum.
“You’re a goddess,” blue bike shorts boy told her appreciatively. He shoved three pieces of gum into his mouth and began to chew them voraciously.
April cracked tiny pink bubbles with her gum and then clapped her hands together. “Okay, people, let’s go!” She wound her way around to the outside of the circle and began to walk counterclockwise, tapping each person on the head as she passed. “Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, goose!” she shouted as she tapped the chubby guy on the head and then sprinted away. He jumped to his feet and gave chase, catching her in his arms and wrestling her to the ground. They lay like that for a while, panting and sort of petting each other.
Bree noticed that none of the other kids were even watching them. They were too focused on their gum-chewing, or they were rubbing their hands up and down each other’s backs and giggling. Then she felt a hand on her back, too, underneath her shirt.
“Let’s take our shirts off,” Cam suggested eagerly.
“Okay,” Bree agreed, not wanting to be a prude. She only had three buttons left buttoned, anyway. The guidebooks were definitely right about Croton. It was wild, and maybe—once she got used to it—exactly what she needed.
“Wow,” he murmured as she folded her shirt neatly and placed it on the grass beside her. The look on his face was the absolute definition of the phrase to gawk.
“Now you,” Bree said, feeling confident in the knowledge that she was the only sober one in the forest. Well, almost.
“What the hell are you kids doing back here?!” a deep voice boomed. An athletic-looking man with a thick mustache strode down the path barefoot, wearing faded Levi’s and a light blue oxford shirt, unbuttoned to midchest.
April sat up and wiped her mouth, her brown eyes shining. “Hi, Mr. Tortia.”
Mr. Tortia didn’t look as angry as he’d sounded. He a
lmost looked like he wanted to hang out. “So, what did I miss?” he demanded eagerly. Then he noticed Bree. “And who, may I ask, are you?”
Cam rubbed the spot between Bree’s bare shoulder blades. “She’s a prospective. And I think maybe she took your share.”
Bree crossed her hands over her chest. Actually, his share of the E was somewhere inside her extra-support bra with double-duty underwire and chafe-free superwide straps, but she wasn’t about to volunteer that information.
Mr. Tortia picked something out of his tobacco-stained teeth and flicked it angrily into the grass, looking genuinely pissed off. “This is a school, not a strip club. Put your clothes back on,” he snapped at Bree.
Gladly.
Bree snatched up her pretty Japanese-style shirt, rising to her feet as she slipped her arms inside the sleeves and buttoned it up to her chin. Who the hell is this guy, anyway? she wondered with frightened indignation.
“You can’t be serious about attending this institution,” Mr. Tortia observed, his thick mustache slick with sweat and spittle. “Croton prides itself on its discretion. Our students are the crème de la crème!”
Bree gazed down at the circle of Croton students, their bare navels and nipples blinking up at her in the warm summer sun, their mouths working the gum, blissed out from the Ecstasy, and exhausted by a single round of Duck, Duck, Goose. Discretion? Crème de la crème? The crème de la crème of fuckups, maybe. And what right did this dude with the mustache have to tell her whether she could go there or not?
“Are you a teacher here or…?” she asked politely.
Mr. Tortia squatted down and held his palm out to April, who handed him a piece of gum. He stood up again. “As a matter of fact, I’m the headmaster,” he replied flatly. He pulled on his mustache and offered her his first smile. “Discretion lesson number one: Let’s not mention this little incident to anyone. Got it?”
Bree nodded mutely.
Mr. Tortia held up both hands and waved with his palms facing backwards, like the Queen of England. “Arrivederci, little prospective girl!” he chimed, dismissing her.
Cam reached up and patted Bree on the bottom. “Drive safely,” he told her affectionately, even though she was obviously not old enough to drive.
Arrivederci, fuckups!
Her whole body trembling with outrage, Bree hurried down the path through the woods, wishing with all her heart there was a subway stop right there by the duck pond. She could swipe her MetroCard and catch the 3 train down to 96th Street and Broadway, and be home in time for Dancing With the Stars. The green-headed mallard quacked at her mockingly as she hurried by. “Crème de la crème! Crème de la crème! Crème de la crème!” he seemed to be saying.
Bree whipped out her cell phone and dialed information. “Taxi. In Croton Falls, New York,” she instructed.
“We have no listings for Taxi,” the operator responded blandly. “I’ll check Limousines.”
“Fine.” Bree typed the number for the Village of Croton’s only limousine service into her cell phone. With the money her father had given her combined with the money already in her wallet, she could probably get the driver to take her all the way home.
Who said she wasn’t the crème de la crème?
11
When Tahj came home from band practice Yasmine was standing in front of the bathroom sink, contemplating her hair—or lack thereof—in the round, toothpaste-spattered mirror, still wet from her shower. She’d ridded herself of Mekhi’s musty smell and was horrified to discover that she sort of enjoyed the fact that Tahj had absolutely no clue.
When she’s bad, she’s bad.
“Nice towel,” Tahj observed, planting a kiss on the nape of her neck.
“Thanks.” Yasmine batted her eyes and placed her hands on her hips, modeling the chintz floral bath towel, one of the many Porsha had purchased for the apartment during her short but sweet stay.
Tahj wrapped his arms around Yasmine’s waist. “Did you get my present?” He looked cute in an orange T-shirt and baggy green shorts, and he smelled like hay from the herbal cigarettes he was always smoking.
“Porsha moved out,” Yasmine told him evenly, ignoring his question about the cheesy love/friendship ring he’d left on the kitchen counter that morning. “She couldn’t stand living so far away from Barneys in an apartment with graffiti on the door.”
“Well, can you blame her?” Tahj smiled at their reflection in the mirror—two dark shaved heads, same mocha-cinnamon complexion. “Did you get my e-mail?”
We could almost be twins, Yasmine thought, creeping herself out. She was suddenly reminded of those freaky old books she’d read when she was twelve, about a brother and sister who were locked together in an attic and eventually gave birth to twins. “Porsha wants to be our senior speaker. If I miss graduation, she’ll kill me.”
Tahj rolled his eyes, flipped the cracked white toilet seat lid down, and sat down on it. He sighed. “I don’t know how she does it.”
“What do you mean?” Yasmine couldn’t help observing that this little bathroom chat was the longest they’d ever talked without forgetting what they were talking about and ripping each other’s clothes off.
“You’re like the most righteous person I know, but she even manages to get you to do her bidding,” Tahj explained, rubbing the back of his neck where the supershort shaved bits were growing in.
“It’s not like that. We’re friends. Anyway,” Yasmine quickly changed the subject. “I think driving across the country and camping out and stuff sounds…cool.” She put her hands in her pockets, hoping that Tahj would forget all about the ring. “I mean, as long as there’s, like, a bathroom and a shower we can use.”
Sounds like she doesn’t quite know the meaning of “camping out.”
“Really?” Tahj stood up, grinning as he turned her around to face him. “So, are you, like, completely naked underneath that towel?” he asked, kissing her neck and shoulders.
Yasmine knew she ought to have been overwhelmed by her outrageous deception. Mekhi had left only an hour ago. Now here she was with Tahj, her real boyfriend, pretending it was perfectly natural to be taking a shower in the late afternoon, when she normally only took one in the morning. Maybe she was just losing her mind, but somehow it made being with Tahj and Mekhi all the more exciting.
Tahj turned on the shower and pulled his shirt off over his head. “I say we both need to get really, really clean.” He tugged on Yasmine’s towel. “Come on, I’ll wash your hair for you.”
The towel fell to the floor and Yasmine laughed out loud, amazed at how unguilty she felt. The truth was, in the very near future she wouldn’t be seeing much of these boys at all, so why not enjoy them now, while they were standing right in front of her—naked?
After their steaming hot shower, Tahj busied himself cooking wheat gluten chicken nuggets with sweet potato fries, while Yasmine edited her final film project, a series of interviews with seniors from Willard and other private schools that she’d filmed over the course of the past few months.
Some of the interviews were funny and insightful, but some of them could be interpreted in kind of a bad way if you didn’t know the people. She decided to start with Porsha’s interview. Porsha looked really awesome sitting in front of Bethesda Fountain in Central Park wearing a black polo shirt and crystal chandelier earrings. A group of shirtless boys were playing Frisbee in the background, girls in bikinis sprawled at their feet.
“For me it’s not just about having sex, though. It’s about my whole future. Yale and Kaliq: the two things I’ve always wanted…” Porsha declared, sounding unusually psychotic. “And if I don’t get in…someone is going to fucking pay. This is, like, my one chance to be happy, and I think I deserve it, you know?”
Well, hello, crazy bitch.
Yasmine winced. Of course it was good film, but considering how things had turned out with Kaliq, it would hurt Porsha’s feelings too much to use it.
Tahj came out of the kitchen to p
eer over her shoulder at the little screen on her digital video camera, a carrot stick in his mouth. “When’s my part?”
Yasmine fast-forwarded until she got to Tahj’s interview, taken late one night in her bedroom—which explained why he was wearing only a lavender-and-green striped sheet. The interview had been done before he cut his hair, and mini dreadlocks stuck out in all directions from his head.
“I’ve been feeling really, really good about myself since I heard from Harvard,” the practically naked, dreadhead Tahj told the camera. “I mean, I used to be this skinny kid with braces, and now I’m, like, the king. It's great!”
Good for you, dude. Good for you.
Behind them, the timer on the oven went off. “I sound like an asshole,” Tahj observed casually as he headed back into the kitchen. “But you can use it. I don’t mind.”
Yasmine went back to Porsha’s segment, watching it over and over and trying to edit it in such a way that Porsha wouldn’t sound totally demonic. Maybe Porsha didn’t have Kaliq anymore, but she had gotten into Yale in the end.
As Yasmine scrolled over and over through the footage in her film, listening to her classmates’ and peers’ hilariously self-absorbed statements and sad truths, she grew more and more reticent about missing graduation. Not that she was actually into group hugs or white dresses, but it seemed kind of wrong to miss out on the one day she’d been waiting for since she started at Emma Willard in ninth grade.
Like hooking up with two guys on the same day wasn’t wrong?
12
Professor Pierre Papadametriou
English Dept., The Evergreen State College
2700 Evergreen Parkway NW
Olympia, WA 98505
Mekhi Hargrove
815 West End Avenue, Apt. 8D
New York, NY 10024
Dear Mekhi Hargrove,
Upper East Side #8 Page 6
