The Long Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  Shaking off Maya’s hold, Emilia picked up her own phone. She stared at the picture. Her fair skin went paler. Her lips pressed themselves together, but I could see her chin trembling.

  “No one cares,” Maya told her. “So you had a good time one night. It’s not like half the school hasn’t done the same.”

  Emilia was still staring at the picture. I reached over and took the phone from her hand, banishing the picture from her screen. Emilia kept staring at her hand, even once I had her phone.

  “Why have I not heard this story?” Emilia’s friend Di joined our table. “You have heard all my stories, naughty girl.”

  Considering that Di was short for diplomatic immunity and that she had a fondness for dares, her “stories” probably put Emilia’s to shame.

  “Who got this text?” Emilia found her voice. It was low, almost guttural. “Who’s seen the picture?”

  Based on the murmurs and curious glances from the other students in the Hut and this hallway, I had a pretty good guess regarding the answer to that question—just like I had a pretty good idea of who might have sent it.

  “No one cares,” Maya told Emilia again. “We all get a little crazy sometimes.”

  Emilia stood up and grabbed her phone back from me. “I don’t.”

  Emilia wasn’t in my physics class, but she was the topic of conversation nonetheless.

  “I didn’t think she had it in her.”

  “When was that taken?”

  “I always thought she was so perfect.”

  “Wait, wait—who am I?” At the lab table next to mine, a boy adopted a glazed look and let his mouth go slack.

  Several tables away, Henry stood up. He crossed the room, then laid his palms flat on the boy’s lab table and just stood there.

  Slowly, the boy’s friends stopped laughing.

  “I give up,” Henry said, his voice measured and calm. “Who are you?”

  The boy developed a sudden interest in his lab notebook.

  “Is Emilia okay?” Vivvie’s question drew me back to the lab table we were sharing. Vivvie lowered her voice. “I mean, I know she’s probably not thrilled, but on a scale of the complete opposite of okay to okay . . .” Vivvie caught her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes round. “Is she okay?”

  I glanced back at Henry, then answered. “She’d want us to think she is.”

  “Hypothetically speaking,” Asher said, coming up next to me in the cafeteria, “if one were planning to execute an act of derring-do to draw any and all disapproving murmurs away from one’s twin, would it be better if said act involved a handmade hang glider or—”

  “No.” Henry cut Asher off before he could list the second option.

  “It’s really sweet that you want to do something for Emilia,” Vivvie told Asher, “in a completely inadvisable kind of way.”

  “Exactly,” Asher declared. “I am the very soul of altruism, which is why I’m trying to decide between hang gliding off the chapel roof and—”

  “No.” Henry gave Asher a look.

  “Perhaps you don’t get a vote,” Asher told Henry.

  “Perhaps you gave me veto power when were seven,” Henry countered. “And perhaps you jumping off a building is the last thing Emilia would actually want.”

  “Darn you and your infernal logic, Marquette!” Asher, his expression the very picture of woe, reached across Henry and snagged a cookie.

  “This whole thing will blow over,” I told Asher.

  The murmurs had already died down considerably. Like Maya had said that morning, the picture really wasn’t that scandalous. The only reason it had gotten any traction at all was because it was Emilia Rhodes—picture-perfect, angling-for-valedictorian, eyes-on-the-prize Emilia. She managed her reputation with the same fierceness with which she attacked SAT prep. She’d cultivated an image, and this wasn’t it.

  “Consider it my opening salvo.” John Thomas Wilcox slid behind me in the lunch line. He kept his voice low—clearly, those words were meant only for my ears.

  Henry was at the cashier now. Asher and Vivvie were talking to each other.

  John Thomas leaned into my personal space. I helped him out of it. Forcibly.

  “Careful,” John Thomas sneered. “You wouldn’t want to get sent to the office for fighting.”

  Whatever. I noticed that he didn’t attempt to leer at me again.

  “If you ask me,” he announced, his voice louder this time—and designed to carry, “someone did Miss Priss a favor. No one should be wound that tight.”

  I reached the front of the line and gave the cashier my student ID to pay for my food.

  “The picture makes her seem more human,” John Thomas continued behind me. “Like she really knows how to have a good time.”

  Once the cashier handed my card back, I turned to leave. The expression on my face never changed. Eventually, John Thomas would realize he hadn’t gotten a single verbal reply out of me.

  Some people weren’t worth the breath it took to shoot them down.

  I’d made it halfway to our normal table when I noticed that Emilia had a visitor at hers. Mr. Collins. He was the photography teacher. Even from a distance, I could see the disapproval on his face and the flash of panic that crossed Emilia’s as he led her out of the room.

  “Pity,” John Thomas said, coming up behind me once more. “The Hardwicke administration has never been known for their approval of good times. Especially,” he added, “when someone is careless enough for that good time to be caught on camera.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I skipped lunch.

  The Hardwicke administrative building had once been a residence. Now it was a historical landmark. The headmaster’s secretary looked up from her desk when I entered.

  “Tess,” she said warmly. “What can I do for you?”

  I wasn’t sure that twinset-wearing, cookie-baking Mrs. Perkins had any setting other than warm.

  “I’m looking for Emilia Rhodes,” I said. There was a chance that John Thomas had misled me, a chance that Mr. Collins had merely pulled Emilia aside to speak to her himself.

  Mrs. Perkins cured me of that notion. “She’s in with the headmaster. You can wait if you’d like.” She tilted her head to the side. “But isn’t it your lunchtime? You really shouldn’t get in the habit of skipping meals, Tess.”

  A phone on her desk rang. She answered it, and when she turned to consult her computer, I ducked past her desk and made a beeline for the headmaster’s office.

  Adam had said my father had always had a tendency to act with no mind to the consequences. I took that to mean I came by it honestly.

  I twisted the knob and pushed the door in just as Headmaster Raleigh was gaining momentum on a very pointed lecture. “You are, I can only assume, well aware of the Hardwicke policy on alcohol and other such substances,” he told Emilia. “While we cannot police your behavior outside these halls, the distribution of this picture reflects poorly on both you as an individual and on this institution—”

  “I didn’t distribute it.” Emilia’s voice was steady enough, but I could tell her composure was hard-won.

  “Be that as it may,” the headmaster continued, “this is hardly behavior befitting a would-be student-body president. I believe it would be best, for all involved, if you withdrew your name from the race.”

  The Emilia I knew would have refused on the spot. The girl sitting in front of the headmaster’s desk did not.

  “I understand you intend to apply to Yale next year.” Raleigh hit Emilia exactly where it hurt. “Hardwicke has enough students apply each year that the admissions committee relies heavily on the recommendations of our teachers and staff. You want to put your best foot forward. This”—the headmaster nodded toward a phone he’d placed in front of Emilia—“is hardly your best foot.”

  I stepped forward, drawing Raleigh’s attention to me. Emilia didn’t even turn to look, her eyes locked on the front of the headmaster’s desk, her head bowed.


  “Ms.—” the headmaster’s voice boomed with disapproval, but he still hesitated when it came to my name.

  “Kendrick Keyes,” I supplied. Headmaster Raleigh flinched slightly at each of the names. Ivy Kendrick. William Keyes. Like it or not—and most days I didn’t—those names meant something at this school and in this town.

  “This is a private conversation,” the headmaster informed me. “Unless you want to face disciplinary action yourself, I strongly suggest you leave the way you came. Immediately.”

  “Just like you’re strongly suggesting Emilia drop out of the student council race?” I asked. “Remind me: Was there alcohol or any kind of illegal substance in that picture? Was Emilia holding a drink?”

  “I will not warn you again, young lady.”

  “There’s really no way of telling what’s going on in that picture, is there?” I continued. I’d never done well with warnings. “She could have the flu. She could have just pulled an all-nighter. Someone could have slipped something into her nonalcoholic beverage of choice.”

  “Stop, Tess.” Emilia’s voice was hoarse. “Please. Just stop.”

  The phone on the table buzzed. An instant later, mine did, too. Emilia didn’t move, but the headmaster did. He picked up the phone. A few seconds later, I heard a video start to play.

  “Look at her. She’s so wasted! Say ‘wasted,’ Emilia!”

  Whatever Emilia said in response was incomprehensible. Her speech was slurred past all recognition.

  In the present, Emilia lifted her head. Her shoulders shook. I crossed the room and went for the phone, hitting stop as several boys were snickering offscreen and one nudged her with his foot.

  “I’ll step down.” Emilia forced herself to look at Headmaster Raleigh.

  “I think that would be wise,” he said quietly.

  “And what about the boys in that video?” I asked. “The ones taping a girl without her consent? What about the person who’s sending these texts?”

  Now that he’d gotten what he wanted out of Emilia, Headmaster Raleigh seemed less concerned with my presence in the office. “Every effort will be made to find the origin of these texts,” the headmaster promised.

  “And if I told you that John Thomas Wilcox told me that he’d sent the picture?” I asked.

  Emilia was the one who answered. “It would be your word against his.” She shook her head. “He said, she said.” Robotically, she turned back to the headmaster. “If that’s all, I’d like to do some studying before my next class.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I didn’t see Emilia again until World Issues. The moment Dr. Clark told us to break into groups, Emilia asked to go to the bathroom. I had two choices: stay and be interrogated by both Henry and Asher about what had happened in the headmaster’s office, or follow Emilia and risk having my head bitten off.

  I chose the latter.

  When I asked for permission, Dr. Clark assessed me silently. “Off the record,” she said, “if what I’m hearing about how this situation with Emilia was handled is true, I disagree with it on every level.” She nodded to the door. “Go.”

  I went.

  When I got to the bathroom, Emilia was standing in front of the mirror, applying lip gloss. “Don’t worry,” she told me, an edge in her voice. “I’ll still count your favor paid in full.”

  I stepped forward. “That’s not why I’m worried.”

  Emilia put the cap on her lip gloss and turned to look at me. “You don’t get to be worried about me,” she said vehemently. “You don’t even like me.”

  She’d told me once that Asher was the likable twin. He was the one people trusted. She was the one who had focus. The one who did everything right.

  “You weren’t drunk in that picture,” I said softly. “Were you?”

  “You saw the video.” She clamored to hide the naked emotion in her eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I did.”

  In Raleigh’s office, when I’d thrown out the possibility that someone had slipped something into Emilia’s drink that night, she’d told me to stop. Begged me to stop.

  It would be your word against his, she’d said later. He said, she said.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep from replaying John Thomas’s leering words from earlier that day: If you ask me, someone did Miss Priss a favor. No one should be wound that tight.

  From the beginning, that picture had hit Emilia with crippling, devastating force.

  “I’m not talking about this,” Emilia said, her voice taut. “You’re not talking about it. No one is talking about it.” She turned on the faucet and began washing her hands. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  Yes. There is. I didn’t say that. I didn’t get a vote about whether we talked about this or not. No one got a vote but Emilia.

  “I still owe you a favor,” I said.

  Emilia reached for a paper towel. “Do I look like I want a pity favor?” she asked.

  “Do I look like I feel even an ounce of pity for you?” I shot back.

  For the first time, Emilia allowed herself to look at me. Really look at me. I met her stare unflinchingly.

  “Fine,” she said after a moment. “You still owe me a favor. I’ll let you know when I want to collect.”

  “You do that,” I told her. “And if you decide you want to collect now—I can get you back in that race.”

  “The headmaster—” Emilia started to say.

  “I can take care of the headmaster.”

  “That picture—”

  “By the time I’m done,” I said, “that picture will win you this election.”

  John Thomas. She didn’t make the last objection out loud.

  “Him,” I said, “I’ll take care of for fun.”

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Emilia tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. “There’s no way you’re that good.”

  I smiled. “Try me.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Emilia and I went back to World Issues. It took me less than a minute to get Vivvie on board. I texted Ivy that I was going to Vivvie’s place after school and bided my time until the bell rang. On the way to Vivvie’s, I made four phone calls.

  The first was to Anna Hayden.

  “How would you like to stick it to John Thomas Wilcox?” I asked her.

  There was a brief pause. “I’m listening.”

  “He took that picture of Emilia.” I couldn’t tell Anna more than that—not what I suspected about the circumstances in which that picture had been taken, not the devastating effect that even looking at it had on Emilia. But I could give Anna a moment to think about the fact that in another world, John Thomas might have been sending around pictures of her.

  “The headmaster pressured Emilia into dropping out of the race because of that picture,” I continued. “I plan to convince him that was a very bad idea.”

  I told Anna what I had in mind.

  “I know you probably can’t participate yourself,” I said. Anna wasn’t in the limelight as much as she would have been if her father had been president, but she was the only one of the presidential or vice presidential children who wasn’t already of age. That attracted a certain amount of attention. “But if you could pass the word on—”

  “Oh, I’ll participate,” Anna cut in, an edge in her voice. “And so will my friends. Just send me the link and tell me when.”

  The next two calls went to Lindsay Li—she of the blackmailing ex-boyfriend—and Meredith Sutton.

  Right as we reached Vivvie’s place, I made one final call.

  The apartment Vivvie shared with her aunt had round-the-clock security downstairs.

  “How are things going?” I asked Vivvie as we reached the elevator. “With your aunt?”

  “Good,” Vivvie replied with a little half smile. “She got a job at a local gallery.” Vivvie paused. “We don’t talk about my dad much,” she said quietly.

  Vivvie’s father had been part of the conspiracy to murder Justic
e Marquette. Once things had started to unravel, Major Bharani had “committed suicide.”

  Vivvie and I both knew that he had been murdered.

  “Sometimes . . .” Vivvie said, and then she trailed off.

  “Sometimes,” I prompted.

  Vivvie stared at our reflection in the elevator’s metal door. “Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, and my aunt’s just sitting in the living room, staring at nothing and cleaning her gun.”

  Given the sequence of events that had brought Priya Bharani into Vivvie’s life, I supposed a certain amount of late-night paranoia was understandable.

  “On the bright side,” Vivvie commented, determined to end the conversation on a high note, “she’s got great taste, and she lets me borrow her clothes.”

  The elevator came to a stop. The doors opened. Vivvie’s apartment was the only one on the floor. She unlocked the front door, and then we got to work.

  “I think the picture of Emilia was taken in a bathroom?” Vivvie caught her bottom lip between her teeth and rocked from her heels to her toes. “I’ll get some pens and paper,” she declared. “My bathroom is through there.”

  While Vivvie went in search of writing supplies, I went to check out the lighting in the bathroom. Setting my bag to one side, I lowered myself to the floor. I slumped back against the wall next to the bathtub, letting my head loll to one side.

  “How’s this?” I asked Vivvie when she came in.

  She stared at me for a second. “Go like this,” she told me, bending her head down and flipping her hair over in front of her face. I did as she instructed and watched through my hair as she went over to the sink and got a handful of water. She dripped it on me.

  “Now lean back,” she said.

  I did.

  “Eyes mostly closed,” Vivvie said. “Head a little farther to the side. Legs a little farther apart.”

  Once I’d perfected the pose, Vivvie handed me a sheet of paper and a red marker. Two minutes later, she took my picture. Then we switched places, and I took hers.