Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
I’ve researched that symbol from the yearbook, but that’s hard when it just looks like some kind of bug. In the end, I need to accept that it’s probably something personal that’s significant only to the student who drew it.
I do find out who Annette is. As Allegra promised, I now have access to my mother’s Dux journal.
It’s not a personal diary; it’s her record of the Liliths during her time as Dux.
Mostly what I get is a general picture of my mom at seventeen, and goddamn, she was glorious.
In her element, organizing and mothering and protecting and also just having fun.
As for Annette, it seems she was a fellow Lilith and a friend of my mom’s.
She’d also been the Lilith candidate for Optima.
I don’t get much more than that. The journal seems spotty, as if Mom was an infrequent diarist, which isn’t really like her, but I’m guessing she became more diligent about stuff as she got older.
At Westdale, she was having too much fun to keep a thorough diary, which means all I know about Annette is that she was a Lilith running for Optima, and Mom and Cecilia both liked her a lot.
I also get no hint about why my mom left Westdale. She was here, living and seemingly happy, and then she wasn’t.
On another note, I’ve agreed to let Polly “launch” me on socials, even if I’m not totally sure what that means. For now, it entails giving her all the data she needs and agreeing to let Isolde—a photographer—take pictures of me as we go about our days at Westdale.
I’m finishing lunch with Isolde, Theo, and a few others one day when Polly appears, phone in hand.
“Launched!” she crows.
“I feel like I should crack a bottle of champagne over your bow,” Theo says to me.
Polly pulls over a chair and nudges Isolde aside. Then she shows me my launch, which is…a single photo on Polly’s socials.
It takes a moment for me to recognize the picture as me.
I’m in the library, sitting sideways on a chair.
I’m wearing the cute-goth dress Allegra’s dressmaker made from Allegra’s design.
My Docs are curled partly under me, my head on the armrest, hair hanging over it as I read a first-edition Frankenstein.
The angle comes in partly from the side, so you can just make out a sliver of my profile, my gaze so intent on the book that I never realized Isolde was snapping the shot.
What you don’t see is that I’m not alone.
Maddox is across from me, stretched out in a chair, novel in hand.
To an outsider, our joint reading times would look like we just both happened to be there.
We don’t do more than glance over when the other one reacts to their book. But it always feels like shared time.
I’m not sure I could call Maddox a new friend, a label I’d easily apply to Theo or Isolde. But it’s something. It’s something small and fragile, becoming more precious by the day.
Anyway, Maddox isn’t in the shot. It’s just me, unrecognizable, lost in a book. The caption reads:
New friend at WestA! L arrived earlier this month, and we’re all so happy to have her.
I peer at Polly. “That’s my launch?”
“Don’t look so underwhelmed. I am a professional.”
She clicks the post to show that it was put up twenty minutes ago and has…six thousand likes and two hundred comments? On that?
I skim the comments.
Who is she?
If she’s at WestA, she’s SOMEONE
But coming in second term? Why?
Look at the boots. Daddy’s a rock star
Or Mommy
Name starts with L. Who’s rock royalty with that initial?
Forget the books, guys, she’s reading Frankenstein. Mommy or Daddy is a writer
Guesses follow in a stream.
Polly smiles. “And that is how you do a launch. More to come.”
—
Polly posts again two hours later with a picture that shows me properly.
The Liliths were outside, talking, and Isolde had been wandering.
Then she came up behind me and took a shot just as I turned, my lips parted in mid-speech, eyes dancing with whatever we’d been discussing.
Allegra and Polly are out of focus in the background, but it’s still obvious who they are.
The post reads:
You guys! So many guesses! So far out in left field! Come on back from the bleachers and meet America’s newest billionaire heiress.
Okay, so her fortune is definitely not new, but she just found out she’s a freaking heiress to…To what? That is the question.
Come on, cyber-sleuths, do your work. For every wrong answer, I’ll donate $10 to my foundation. For the right one? Someone takes home $10K from me (though I really think the heiress should pay).
“You are good,” I say.
“Good?” Polly sputters. “Merely good?”
I smile at her as we head upstairs for study break. “The best.” I peer at the screen. “Is that…a thousand guesses already?”
“That’s why I put the donation at ten bucks each. So I don’t go broke. Well, not that I pay. It’s from sponsorship money.”
“And by putting in a prize for guessing right, you increase the number of guesses overall, which means at ten bucks a pop, you’re still going to donate…a lot.”
“Probably six figures. Which is fine. What is money really?”
“I can give you the ten grand for the prize. Cecilia said I can ask for up to that much for petty cash.” I pause. “Though I can’t believe I just said petty cash and ten thousand dollars in the same sentence.”
“Petty cash? We are posh and proper ladies at a posh and proper boarding school. The term is pin money. Next and final post after dinner.”
—
As I’m scraping up the last crumbs of my apple dumpling, someone says, “Holy shit!”
Now, Westdale might be a high school, but it bears only a superficial resemblance to one, and in most ways, it feels more like what I imagine college will be.
Unlike my old school, no one is going to start a fistfight in class.
Or shout grade-school insults walking down the hall. Or yell “Holy shit” in the dining hall.
So when someone does, I notice. And I notice that half the hall has their phones out.
In the middle of the room, Kai shoots to their feet. They look at me and deliver a long-distance fist bump before yelling at the ceiling, “You are a fucking genius, Polly!”
My gaze sweeps the room. Maddox is at the back, making a rare dining hall appearance, and he has his phone out.
He’s shaking his head at whatever’s on the screen.
Then he glances left, and I know immediately who’s over there.
Theo. Their eyes meet, and there’s a look on Theo’s face almost like worry, but Maddox shakes his head again and pairs it with the faintest smile and Theo relaxes.
Not friends anymore, right, guys? Yep, that’s another mystery I’m working on, building enough data to move forward with my hunch.
For now, I realize they’re both looking at me. Waiting to see my reaction to whatever’s on the screen.
I finally get the app open. It goes straight to Polly’s profile. I click on the latest photo, and my breath catches.
It’s me from two nights ago, in the lounge for games night. I’m at the chess table, and I’ve just won. Isolde caught me leaning back in my chair, laughing, my opponent leaning forward, finger pointed at me, mock angry but unable to keep from laughing.
It’s a moment of pure joy, captured and frozen. Two new friends playing chess, the winner crowing her victory.
And my opponent?
Theo Dubois.
The post reads simply: Checkmate.
Then two lines down #LilianaChamberlain #YesThoseChamberlains #TheHeiressWinsAll #AndIDontJustMeanTheGame
I look up, my heart racing as fast as the reactions are climbing. I look anxiously over at Theo, but he shoots me a grin and a thumbs-up.
Then Polly walks in, and the room erupts in applause, Kai leading a standing ovation.
“And you are now launched,” she says as she leans over me. “Check and mate.”
—
A few days later, I’m called into Ms. Dimitriou’s office. I try not to stress about that. She’s checked in on me a few times, but this is my first actual summons.
Her door is cracked open, and when there’s no response after a quiet knock, I’m about to withdraw. Then I hear her voice, as if she’s on the phone.
“He seems to be doing much better,” she says. “I think it’ll take this time.”
I hesitate. I know I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but I can’t help wonder what she means about hoping something will “take.” It sounds vaguely sinister.
Her voice drops, emotion threading through it. “Thank you. I really think this hospital can help. He’s been through so much, and I try not to blame myself. I was busy with work when he really needed his mom, and he fell in with the wrong crowd.”
Oh, shit. She’s talking about rehab. For her son.
I pull back sharply and shake my head as if I can unhear it.
That’s a secret I’m not giving Allegra. It’s also a reminder that the adults in my life are people, dealing with their own problems, and a reminder, too, that I blew off my last check-in with Cecilia.
She’s living in Savannah for me, and I can’t make her job harder.
I wait out the conversation, and then I rap again, and Ms. Dimitriou calls me in.
When I enter and see what’s on her desk, my stomach knot tightens.
After Polly’s “reveal,” the story exploded in ways I didn’t expect. Cecilia knew about Polly’s launch and had approved it, while mobilizing my family’s PR department to supply approved photos and soundbites and tell would-be interviewers that I’m busy with school.
Yet the photo all the non-business sites want isn’t a posed shot of me looking pensive and corporate. It’s the one of me and Theo, and Cecilia helped Isolde manage selling rights to it.
It’s that photo I’m looking at now, on the front page of a national newspaper’s entertainment section with the headline: Who Is Heiress Liliana Chamberlain? and the subhead And Why Is She Playing Chess with Theo Dubois?
I breathe through my nose, willing my heart rate to slow as Ms. Dimitriou says, “Take a seat, Liliana.”