Chapter Ten
TEN
Yesterday, Theo had suggested we make a routine of grabbing breakfast together. Since he didn’t firm up actual plans to meet, I’m telling myself he changed his mind. Which means if I just happen to eat early and miss him…?
I’m at the breakfast room the moment it opens. I grab food, head to the library, and tuck into a corner with my math textbook. Yes, we’re allowed to have food and drinks in the library despite it being full of rare books. If we spill something, our families can afford to pay for the damage.
At seven-twenty, I get a text on my new watch.
Theo
Swinging by your room in ten.
LMK if I’m too early
Even seeing his name makes my stomach twist. I want to leave that message unread and pretend I never saw it, but…
What had Maddox said?
Don’t ever play poker.
I can bristle at that, but he’s right.
Me
Already ate. Sorry
A long pause, and I remind myself that if he’s the guy in that article then I don’t care whether I hurt his feelings.
If he’s the guy in that article.
But he must be, right? It’s a legal accusation. If that’s the guy he is, I want nothing to do with him.
There’s that “if” again…
Damn it.
Me
Getting some math work in.
Still need to catch up
When he doesn’t answer, I silently curse myself. Okay, here I was thinking the pause meant he was trying to figure out why I ducked our informal breakfast date, and really, he’d just accepted my answer and moved on.
I’m about to put away my phone when he starts to type, those three dots pulsing. They stop, and I wait, but then they pulse again, as if he deleted a response and is retyping.
It takes a solid three minutes for him to reply.
Theo
NP. I know you’re worried about math
Me
I wasn’t sure whether breakfast was a firm plan
Theo
It’s all good. You studying right now?
Me
Yep
Theo
So…not up for company, I’m guessing?
Me
Sorry
He sends a thumbs-up, and a “maybe lunch,” and I don’t reply.
—
I want to confront Allegra about the file. I’m hoping to do that at morning break, but she’s nowhere to be found. Who I do find, far too easily? Theo.
I’m in line for my coffee when a voice says, “Not stalking you,” and I turn to see Theo where Theo had not been before.
Behind him is Cosmo, busy studying something on his phone, as if he hadn’t just let Theo skip in line, and I’m annoyed on Cosmo’s behalf, wanting to tell him that if he’s honestly running for Optima, he at least needs to be able to tell Theo Dubois no.
“You didn’t answer my text about lunch,” Theo says, hands in his pockets. He’s smiling, but there’s a tension behind his eyes.
“I’m not sure what my plans are.”
“Okay…”
“There’s a lot to catch up on for classes, and I’m feeling overwhelmed.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“I just need space,” I say.
“Space…”
“I’m going to keep today free, I think, and study. I know you said it looks bad if we study too much, and I appreciate the advice, but getting caught up is more important.”
“And if I offer to bring lunch to the library for you, that’d be a no?”
I shift my book bag. “That’s very nice, but you don’t need to put yourself out.”
“Put myself out,” he repeats slowly. “Okay…” A pause, and then he lowers his voice. “You can tell me to back off, Lil. I know I can come on strong.”
“It’s not that.”
“Just that you’re very busy.”
“Right.”
He nods and looks away. Thankfully, at that moment, I’m up, and I can place my order with Enzo. I do that, and when I move aside to wait for it, I glance back to Theo, bracing for him to order and move up beside me again.
But all I see is his back, heading out the door.
—
Theo’s waiting for me when I get out of business class. He lifts two fingers.
“Two minutes of your time,” he says, his expression unreadable. “Then you can get lunch and go study.”
I nod and he leads me down the hall to an empty classroom. Once we’re inside, he shuts the door but doesn’t push it completely closed. Then he moves so he’s not blocking my path if I want to leave, and guilt darts through me.
Does this seem like the kind of guy who’d do what’s in that article?
“I don’t play games, Lil,” he says.
I bristle. “I’m not—”
“I don’t think this is a game. But I do think you aren’t being honest with me. Cards on the table. That’s the only way I play. If you feel chased, tell me, and I’ll back off.”
“I don’t. I’m just—”
“Very, very busy and barely able to look at me.”
My cheeks heat. “I’m overwhelmed. That’s all.”
“Did someone tell you something about me?”
My head jerks up, eyes meeting his even as I curse myself for reacting. “Tell me what?”
He throws up his hands. “Who knows. There’s a very long list of things people say about me. Some of it’s true. Some of it is not. I’d very much like the chance to explain which is which.”
“Can we talk later?”
He pulls back, head tilting as he looks at me. “Are you blowing me off?”
My jaw tenses. “I wouldn’t do that. Before dinner. Okay?”
“Okay.”
—
For lunch, I grab a take-out box, which is intended to be taken into the lounge for socializing, not outside for a walk. Or outside to hide, as the case may be.
This does feel familiar, though—early days at a new school when I hadn’t found anyone to eat lunch with. I’ve done the “eat a sandwich in a bathroom stall” thing. But if the weather was decent, I’d take my lunch to go. I just wanted to get in some exercise. Really.
I exit through the north door and then skirt through the gardens to avoid anyone on the back deck. I’m walking and eating a hoagie and daydreaming when I trip over a pot of new seedlings.
“I’m so sorry,” I say to the gardener, who is rising from where he’d been working. I scoop the seedlings and dirt back into the pot. “And now I’m making more of a mess, aren’t I?”
The gardener laughs softly. “It’s fine, Miss N—Miss Chamberlain.”
I look up at him. He’s maybe fifty, with graying hair and a kind smile.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” I say. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Burt. And we haven’t officially met, but I’ve seen you. You have your dad’s eyes.” A soft laugh as he fixes the seedling. “You sound like him, too, getting all flustered and apologizing. He was a great kid.”
My breath catches, but before I can speak, he says, “I just heard he passed a few years back. I remember him very well. Not the world’s best gardener, but he put his all into it, and that’s what counted.”
I go very still as his words sink in. “My dad worked with you?”
“Sure did. He was taking a year off school, saving up to go to college.” He pauses. “I’m guessing he never went.”
“He didn’t. I came along and then…” I shrug. “He was an amazing dad. Never did much gardening, though.”
Burt laughs. “I bet he didn’t. Got enough of it here. I’m sorry about your mom, too. I heard she passed recently. Man, they were something else. So much in love.” His eyes mist. “Too young to fall that hard, I suppose.”
I shake my head. “They might have been young, but it lasted to the end.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Miss Chamberlain. I really am. And I’m glad…” He trails off. “Well, it’s good to see you doing so well. Just…” He looks toward the house. “Be careful. Please.”
I want to ask what he means, but he’s already returning to his work.
Now I know why I couldn’t find Dad in the yearbook.
—
It’s almost a cliché, isn’t it? The heiress and the gardener? Only Dad had been a kid himself, making money for college, and then he’d met Mom and…
And what had Burt started to call me? Not Miss Green. Something that starts with N.
I remember seeing staff yearbooks in the library.
Of course Westdale has lots of old student yearbooks, but they also have one shelf—in a less prominent place—for staff, reaching back twenty years, as if it was only in this century that they acknowledged all the work everyone does to keep Westdale running.
The yearbooks are slim volumes, pretty much just photos of the staff, plus pages where students wrote tributes. I choose the right year and leaf through the alphabetical photos to G and I do find a Green. Or a Greene.
Burton (Burt) Greene. Senior Gardener.
I thumb forward to the Ns, and there’s my dad, leaning on a rake, smiling.
William (Will) Nelson. Junior Gardener.
There’s something odd about the photo. Oh, it’s definitely Dad. There’s no doubt of that. It’s a color photo, with his dark blond hair worn to his shoulders in a shaggy look that I would have teased him about. The bright green eyes are my own, as is the dimple on his left cheek.
The odd thing is the photo itself, which seems to have been glued in. Was it put over another one? I scrape the edge and then flip to the previous page, where I can see that it’s as if the original photo was cut out.
I take the book to a table with a light and position it underneath. There are marks right at the edge of the cut-out portion. Tiny pen strokes on my dad’s side of the page. As if the part that was cut out had writing on it.
Someone wrote on my dad’s photo, and the school cut the whole thing out and replaced it.
I flip to the back pages and skim the tributes. There are three pages of them, students thanking and teasing the staff. On the last page, I see Cecilia’s handwriting.
Will, you bastard, you’d better take care of my Rose. JK. I know you will. Miss you both already! Ceci
Tears fill my eyes. My dad would never have seen it, obviously, but Cecilia still wrote it, her tribute to him.
As I examine the pages, I notice a couple of oddly blank spots, surrounded by tributes…as if those spots hadn’t been blank before.
I move the book under the light and see the ghost of writing, hidden under correction fluid. I adjust the gooseneck lamp for a better look—
My phone buzzes, telling me I need to get to Math.
I’m about to put the book back when I pause, find a spot on the shelf behind me, and slide it there instead.
—
I finally catch up with Allegra. Or she catches up with me, quite literally, as I’m hurrying to the library on the break between afternoon classes. I want a closer look at that yearbook.
“If you’re ducking me,” she says, “you needn’t bother. I won’t hound you for an answer. I trust you will make the correct one.”
It takes a moment to realize she’s talking about the Liliths.
“I’ve actually been looking for you,” I say. “Do you have a moment?”
“I do.”
“Let’s step outside.”
“Must we? It’s terrible weather.”
“It’s sixty-five degrees, and the sun’s out.”
“Do you know what sunlight does to the skin?”
I shake my head and walk for the side door. She sighs the most delicate of sighs and follows.
“That file you gave me?” I say, turning to face her. “I don’t want to know more. You can keep your secrets, and if I do decide to join the Liliths, it’ll be in spite of your bullshit, not because of it.”
Silence. Then, “Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s back up. What file did I email you?”
“Not email. A file folder pushed under my door.”
Her brows shoot up. “How clandestine. Honestly, Liliana, can you picture that? Me crouching in the hall to push papers under? What was in this file?”
“Secrets.”
“Then I certainly wouldn’t have been so careless. Secrets about what?”
“About who. Maddox and Theo.”
“Ah, someone is trying to drive a wedge between you and your early allies. Interesting. I would suggest you look at who that benefits.”
I meet her gaze. “I am.”
She shakes her head. “Theo is only a threat to me if he lures you into the Apollos, and it’s clear he knows—correctly—that the Liliths are a better fit for you.
Maddox is only a threat if he lures you out of the race altogether, to join him on the sidelines, sprawled on the bleachers and silently mocking us for doing exactly what Westdale wants, like puppies pointlessly chasing a ball. I can’t see you doing that.”
“Okay, thank you. Then I think I know who did it.” I turn to head back inside.
She glides into my path. “What are the secrets?”
“Do you honestly expect me to tell you? The collector of secrets?”
“I’ve known Theo and Maddox since we were children. We went to the same private elementary school and then Sierra Forks—the L.A. feeder school for Westdale.”
When I still hesitate, she lowers her voice. “Is one of those secrets about Jenna Moreno’s death?”
I stop short. “What?”
“Maddox’s sister. She went here, to Westdale. She died here.”
I inhale sharply.
Allegra continues, “Jenna OD’d at an off-site party. That’s why Maddox doesn’t want to be at Westdale. His mother made him come. So if he seems like just another rich boy playing rebel?”
“He’s not,” I murmur. “Being here reminds him of her.”
“Maddox and his sister were close. When she died, he was out of school for a term and there was…”
“A breakdown,” I murmur. “That’s what—” I stop short.
“That’s the secret?” Her face hardens. “What did they say about it?”
“They sent me his intake form for a psychiatric hospital.”
Her face goes rigid, eyes snapping with more emotion than I’ve ever seen from Allegra. “They implied there was something shameful in Maddox needing—and accepting—treatment? That is intolerable, and if it makes you feel differently about him—”
“It doesn’t. I was furious at the implication.”
That fire is extinguished. “Good. Now for Theo. Was it some sort of equally ridiculous non-secret? Perhaps the fact he’s bi?”
“No, I figured that when Polly said he’d be asking some lucky ‘person’ to the gala. This was…” I chew my lip. Then I blurt, “An article saying he coerced an actor into sex. For a part.”
“Oh that.” She rolls her dark eyes. “Do you really think Theo Dubois needs to coerce anyone into sex?” When I open my mouth to protest, she lifts a hand.
“Yes, sometimes coercion is the point, but Theo’s ego alone wouldn’t let him sleep with anyone who didn’t want him.
That particular situation was settled shortly after it hit the news.
The actor went to the papers and the police, and then quietly offered to retract his statement in return for a role in Bernard Dubois’s next movie.
Trinity—Theo’s mom—hired a private investigator, who confirmed that Theo’s side of the story was correct.
He met the actor at a party, and they did leave together, but only to share a car and discuss the actor auditioning for a role.
The driver dropped them off separately. They didn’t even hook up. It was very clearly a trap.”
When I don’t answer, she says, “I can send you the article on the retraction. It was, as you might guess, much smaller and less widely disseminated than the accusation.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now about the Liliths…?”
I hesitate. Then I say, “I’m in.”
Her head tilts, as if she wants to ask how I came to this sudden conclusion. It’s because in this conversation, I caught a glimpse of the girl behind the mask, and I think she’s someone I’d like to get to know better.
In the end, she only says, “All right then. Welcome to the Liliths.”