Reputation

by Sara Shepard

“I want you to leave.”

  I was thrown that he’d figured me out so fast. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” But then I stared down at my bare legs, my tits hanging out. I looked ridiculous.

  And then it was just . . . over. I couldn’t go to his office that next Monday. I wondered, actually, if I’d ever set foot on Aldrich campus again. The prospect gave me chest pains. Aldrich University had seeped into me. I didn’t want to leave its walls. I sat down on the frigid curb outside his house, too numb to cry. It felt like I’d run into a brick wall. Like I’d fallen down a deep, endless hole.

  But I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.

  The Uber has dropped me at a detached three-story house painted a Wedgwood blue. The doorway is narrow, dark, and kind of grim. When I ring the bell and the door swings open, though, the house widens into a big space with exposed-brick walls and ceiling beams. The space is packed, and the kitchen is new and swanky and way nicer than anything a college student should be living in. Cool, funky music swirls through the speakers.

  “You made it!” I feel a hand on my arm and there is Alexis, her eyes looking extra huge and sultry, her dark hair piled on her head, and a slinky black jumpsuit clinging to her curves. The tag pokes out the back: Tory Burch again. She looks me up and down, then pouts. “No fair. You look prettier than me.”

  I swish my hand. “I’ve been at a funeral all day. I probably smell like church.”

  Alexa’s eyes widen. “Was it that doctor who was murdered?”

  I blink. “How’d you know?”

  Her gaze drifts to the corner. Of all people, Sienna sits in profile, speaking to a guy in a Thom Yorke T-shirt. I watch as she tips the bottle of wine she’s holding to her mouth and takes a long drink. Whoa.

  “I know you guys are friends,” Alexis says in a low voice. “And a bunch of people asked her about her stepfather’s funeral today, so . . .” She looks puzzled. “You didn’t know she was coming?”

  I shake my head. Sienna didn’t mention anything about going to a party tonight . . . not that I’d asked. But this party seems way out of her league. Just as I’m about to head over there, Alexis catches my arm. “Can I show you around?”

  Alexis’s eyes are hopeful. “Okay,” I say. “Just a sec.”

  I quickly open the Uber app and type in all the details, charging a ride for Sienna to my account. Then I send Sienna a text: A friend says you’re at a party but maybe need rescuing. There will be a car waiting for you outside in five minutes. Please get home safe, and call me in the morning.

  There. Now it’s up to Sienna to actually heed my advice.

  I peer around the house. A spiral staircase leads to a second level. The floors are a dark, expensive-looking wood. “Whose place is this, anyway?”

  Alexis leans so close I can smell her citrus perfume. “My boyfriend’s.”

  I keep my smile pasted on, but inside, my spirits sink. “He must be some baller.”

  “His name’s Trip,” Alexis says, as though this tells me everything I need to know. She looks around the room. “There he is.”

  She points to a tall guy with floppy hair. His skin has a healthy glow, his teeth are straight and white, and there’s something about his bone structure that screams WASP. On one hand, I can totally see them together. On the other, I can’t at all.

  Alexis takes my hand and leads me through the crowd. I figure she’s going to introduce me to Trip, but instead, we walk through the kitchen and to a set of dark back stairs. I glance over my shoulder. Sienna’s still in the corner, talking to that guy—I’ve never seen him before. She’s also moved on to a new bottle of wine.

  I bite my lip hard. Did she even see my text? I open the phone and send another one. Sienna, seriously. You should go home.

  I watch as she pulls her phone out and squints at the screen. Then she peers around the room. Looking for me? Looking for the “friend” who told on her? To my relief, she gets up, sets the wine bottle on the table, and wobbles out the door. Good.

  Finally, I can follow Alexis. Our shoes clonk against the bare wood on the stairs. It’s hotter on the second floor and has that stuffy smell of a grandmother’s house. The staircase winds around past the second floor, and Alexis follows it until we reach a door in the ceiling. She pushes it open, and a blast of cool air rushes in. I can see a sky full of stars. The only way to get to the roof is to climb a rickety metal ladder, which I can’t manage in heels.

  Alexis senses my hesitation and points to my shoes. “Take those off. You have to come up. It’s the best view in the neighborhood.”

  I kick off my heels. The ladder wobbles vertiginously as I put my weight on it, and once I’m on the roof, I have a sudden, sharp fear that something terrible might happen. It’s not like I know Alexis very well. She could close the hatch, lock me up here, and leave me for dead. I glance down at her nervously; she’s still on solid ground at the ladder’s base. But then she follows me. I breathe out.

  Once we’re both up the ladder and on the sooty, tacky roof, we look around. Low buildings rise around us, but farther beyond, I can see the string of buildings downtown and the glittering lights on the bridges. The cars on the highway across the river look like tiny jewels.

  “Nice,” I whisper. Even nicer: When I look down, I spy a car chugging at the curb. Sienna stumbles down the steps and lurches for the door. “You Sienna?” I hear the driver say. The door slams, and the car pulls away. I let out a breath I didn’t quite realize I was holding.

  Alexis leads me across the roof to two plastic chairs and a folded flannel blanket. “Come under this with me, babe. Sun’s gone down, so it’s chilly.”

  Babe. Her signals are all over the map. She drapes the blanket over our legs and pulls something out of a shoulder bag. A shiny wine label glints in the moonlight. “Screw top, luckily,” she murmurs, twisting off the cap. An acidic scent fills my nostrils. My mouth waters.

  Traffic swishes peacefully. Alexis’s body presses into mine, and I feel the swell of her rib cage as she breathes. I want to snuggle with her, but I still can’t quite read the situation—how much touching is too much? What is friendly, and what’s romantic? I need to play this just right. As impatient as I am for things to move quickly, I have to bide my time.

  “So are you feeling sad?” Alexis asks after we’ve both drunk from the wine bottle.

  “Sad? No. Why do you ask?”

  “You were at a funeral. Usually, after I’m at a funeral, I’m a little sad.”

  “Oh.” I scrunch the scratchy blanket in my hands. My leg is falling asleep from the weight of Alexis’s body, but I don’t dare move. “I feel bad for Sienna, sure. She’s a good friend. I was with her the night that guy was killed, actually.” Although, actually, I wasn’t with Sienna the whole night. I’d found her about twenty minutes after she found out about Greg. She was balled up in a corner, practically catatonic.

  “Did you know him?” Alexis asks.

  I turn my head away, staring at a smokestack on a nearby roof. “Sort of,” I lie.

  “He wrote some sexy e-mails to someone. Have you read them?”

  “I’m not really into hack gossip.” I don’t want to talk about this anymore, so I tilt my head back. “Look at that red light up there. Think it’s a spaceship?”

  Alexis squints. “No, silly. That’s Mars.”

  “Really?” I squint hard. “Nah. It’s so bright.”

  Alexis swallows more wine. “The planets are always bright. And that’s definitely Mars because of its reddish tinge.” She gives me a cocky smile. “You’re looking at the president of her astronomy club in high school, so I know for sure.”

  “You were an astronomy nerd?” I nudge her. “You’re making that up.”

  “I was a nerd through and through.” Alexis laughs. “I took all AP classes, on the Quiz Bowl team, in Model UN . . .”

&
nbsp; I’m about to ask what Model UN is—my school didn’t have fancy clubs. But that would make me look stupid. “Well, good for you.”

  “Were you a nerd, too?” Alexis asks.

  I’m about to tell her yes, but maybe it’s not the right play tonight. “Actually, I was a troublemaker,” I admit. “I can’t even believe I got into Aldrich.”

  “Your grades weren’t good?”

  “No, they were good. Great, actually. But, I mean, it’s Aldrich.”

  Alexis frowns. “Aldrich isn’t that great.”

  “Of course it is,” I say proudly, my smile crooked. “I mean, it’s gotta mean something that it was hacked along with Harvard and Yale, right?”

  “Yeah, but.” Alexis stretches out her legs. “All that stuff that’s come out in the hack—everyone seems so skeevy, you know? Totally amoral. Half the professors are criminals.”

  “Well, I still love it,” I say, feeling something clench in my chest. It’s true. I love Aldrich desperately. I love the things I’ve learned, the taste of the world I’ve received. Maybe that’s because it’s about to be taken away from me.

  Alexis chuckles. “Personally, I love people, not old, crumbling institutions run by old, crumbling white dudes.”

  I laugh, too. “So, like, you love your boyfriend, then?”

  She snorts. “Oh God, no. Not him.” And then she lowers her chin. Her eyelashes flutter. “But I might be into someone else. I’m not sure yet. It’s all really . . . new.”

  I watch her carefully. Is she sending a message? If not, then what are we doing up on this roof together, alone?

  “Hey,” Alexis suddenly says with momentum. “Come with me to my parents’ place next Tuesday. They live just a few miles to the north.”

  I stiffen. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not great with families.”

  “Please?” She grabs my hands. “It’s my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday—I have to go. We’d have so much fun! We could ride the horses, we have a great heated indoor pool, their bar is insane . . .”

  The scent of a cigarette drifts up from the street. I try to wrap my mind around what Alexis is asking. Meet her family? What if Alexis’s parents see right through me? What if I do something that shows my roots? It is so far out of my comfort zone I don’t even know how to answer.

  “But what about Trip?” I finally say. “Maybe you should take him instead.”

  Alexis’s face darkens. “He’s already invited. But I want you to come, too.”

  I frown. “Are you sure that makes sense?”

  “My parents are crazy about Trip,” Alexis explains in an almost woeful voice. “He’s practically a son-in-law to them already. But I’m tired of him. He’s just . . . I don’t know. Not right.”

  I sit back. “Then why are you going out with him?”

  She shrugs. “You know what it’s like. When my parents like a guy, they’ll move heaven and earth to make sure I stick with him. My parents have wanted to cut me loose for years, though—they’re real assholes. Breaking up with Trip would be just the straw that breaks their backs.”

  I cross my arms. “So you’re basically pretending to be with Trip just to make sure they don’t disown you?” I say disown on purpose. I need to know if money’s at stake.

  Alexis taps her nails against the wine bottle. “You could say that. It would have to take someone really special to make me break away from them.”

  She looks at me, hope in her voice. I feel another flutter in my chest. And she’s got to be indebted to her family because there’s money involved. A trust fund, probably. Something her family would cut her out of if she didn’t obey. And just like that, I’ve found her weakness.

  Alexis grabs my hands. “So will you come next weekend? Please?”

  Far above us, an airplane zooms. It’s a plane and not a planet—I can tell by the blinking light on the wing. “All right. It sounds fun.”

  “Great!” Alexis cries, throwing her arms around me. “We’re going to have a blast!”

  I squeeze her tight, inhaling her scent, feeling her hair tickling my shoulders. It’s hard not to be excited. It’s hard not to leap up and scream to the universe, Thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe, after twisting Alexis around my finger, I’ll get to stay at Aldrich after all.

  I think about that cold, bitter night after I’d left Manning’s house. I called Sienna because her family lived close by and I needed to get out of the subzero air. I had no intention of telling her what had happened with her grandfather or anything. At that point, I’d actually liked Sienna as a person, and I didn’t want her to think less of me.

  Sienna said she was on her way back from a ski weekend with friends; she said she was pretty sure no one else was home but that I could let myself in with the garage code to warm up.

  I rushed into the warm, big house. Hot water would help my numb fingers, so I set off to the bathroom. When I passed the kitchen and saw the figure by the fridge, I screamed. He looked over and screamed, too. Then came the shattering sound of breaking glass.

  “Jesus!” Sienna’s stepfather backed up against the fridge door. He was wearing med scrubs and white sneakers, and his eyes were round with surprise. “Who are you?”

  “I’m so sorry!” I cried. And then: “I’m Raina. Sienna said I could come in. She gave me the garage code. She said no one would be home.”

  Sienna’s father’s brow furrowed, taking in my skimpy outfit. “Were you outside in just that?” I nodded miserably. There were goose bumps on my arms.

  He found a sweatshirt, some heavy wool socks. I changed in the powder room, staring at my naked body, then a black-and-white photograph of some lake in Yosemite. When I walked back into the kitchen, Sienna’s stepfather was mopping up the glass that had broken on the floor.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said again. “I can reimburse you.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s kind of my fault. I was skulking around in the dark, trying to figure out what to do.” He paused. “I’m supposed to go out with my wife’s friends tonight—stupid holiday tradition. I really, really don’t want to.”

  The floor smelled yeasty from the beer. Sienna’s stepfather had an impressive mop of hair, thick and wavy. I remembered my encounter with him in Manning’s office the day of my interview. That smile he’d shot me when I was leaving. My skin began to tingle.

  “Why don’t you want to go out?” I asked softly, leaning against the counter.

  He brushed the pieces of glass into a dustpan and carefully slid it into a chrome trash can. “Have you ever gone out with people not because you want to but because you have to? Except if you had to choose, they wouldn’t be the people you’d ever want to hang out with?”

  “All the time.”

  “Well, it’s like that.”

  “Then don’t go if you don’t want to. Life’s too short.”

  His lips twisted into a smile. “You know, you’re right. I think I’ll say my surgery is running late.” He touched his phone. The screen glowed to life, showing a family photo of himself, Sienna, Aurora, and his pretty, polished wife. After he tapped a few words, the phone made the telltale bloop noise that the text had been sent. “There,” he said.

  I took in his height, his handsome bone structure, his name across his chest. Dr. Greg Strasser, Cardiology. His eyes roamed from my hair to my bare legs to the way the sweatshirt clung to my boobs. I could feel the heat of his gaze and practically see the thoughts forming in his mind. Dr. Strasser was gorgeous. Dr. Strasser seemed willing. And most of all, Dr. Strasser, a cardiologist, was probably loaded.

  And just like that, I shifted gears. It was so easy.

  Greg’s phone beeped; he glanced at it, and his face clouded. “Is that your wife?” I asked, coiling a piece of hair around my finger. “Did I get you in trouble?”

  Greg sighed. “No one said marriage was easy.” Th
en he looked at me as if realizing something. “You’re at Aldrich like Sienna, right? How are you liking it?”

  “I love it. I’m on the Dean’s List.”

  “Good for you.” Dr. Strasser held my gaze. “And you work for Kit’s dad, right?”

  “Worked.” I felt a corkscrew of regret. “We’ve . . . parted ways.”

  He snorted. “Well, Alfred Manning is a cantankerous old coot.” He leaned in closer, smelling like clean clothes. “I don’t think he likes me much, either.”

  I gave him a skeptical look, wanting to ask why not. Instead, I pointed at the bottle of wine on the counter. “Mind if I have some of that?”

  Strasser glanced at the wine, then crossed his arms. “How old are you?”

  “How old do I look?” And then, after a beat, “I’m almost twenty-one, honest. Birthday’s March nineteenth.” A lie. My birthday was in March, but I would be only twenty.

  The teakettle whistled. Strasser switched off the burner. He poured me a half glass of wine. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” I sipped. “And thank you.”

  “Nah, thank you.” His eyes twinkled. “I am way, way too tired for a night out.” He rubbed his forehead and temples, grimacing.

  I lowered my lashes. “I can help you relax, if you want.”

  Dr. Strasser froze, the wine halfway to his lips. The ions in the room seemed to rearrange. If there was a moment to just act, it was now. I took a step toward him. I would start with a little massage. I’d comment on his musculature. Ask if he worked out. Men loved that. As I stepped closer, I momentarily left my body and saw this scene as a stranger peering through the window: a pretty girl in a sweatshirt and socks and an older man in surgical scrubs stood in the kitchen.

  “Aldrich doesn’t have a Dean’s List, you know,” Greg suddenly said.

  I stopped halfway across the floor. “I’m sorry?”

  “Aldrich doesn’t have a Dean’s List. It’s one of the school’s quirks.”

  “Oh.” An oily sensation spread through me. “My bad. I was thinking of my high school’s honors list, I guess.” I raised one shoulder in an Aw shucks, but my heart was starting to beat hard. “And I just wanted to impress you. Is that so wrong?”