Chapter 4 Dirty #2
Clay scowls. “Yeah. So Manceau fed me a bunch of bullshit about how St. Mary’s expects better of me because I’m football captain and all that.
Oh, but then get this, he interrupted his lecture halfway through because his wife called and wanted to know whether he’d prefer ‘teacup pink’ or ‘butter yellow’ paint for their bedroom, so then he spent like six minutes debating the options with her, and then finally he gets off the phone and tells me that he wants to suspend me but can’t because he has no proof.
So then Father Simon comes in and is all, ‘I’m praying for you during this time of reflection’ and some other bullshit. ”
“So what’s going to happen?” Hannah asks. “Anything?”
“No,” Clay says, with a trace of a smirk. “They’re gonna call my parents, but you know my dad would raise hell if Manceau tried to suspend me with no proof—”
“Yeah, but your dad will skin you alive,” Wally says.
“Nah. He’ll be pissed, and my mom will probably cry a little bit, but they’ve already been through this kind of thing with Ethan. They’d only care if something really bad happened, but it’s not like I had a party and someone died.”
“Let’s go outside,” Baker says, peering over their shoulders at the front office. “Mrs. Adler is officially sending death glares.”
They shuffle out to the senior courtyard and take their place at their favorite table, where Joanie sits waiting for them, tapping her foot against the table leg. “Where the hell were y’all? I look like a loser sitting here by myself.”
“Yeah, because that’s the only time you look like a loser,” Hannah says.
“Clay got in trouble with Manceau,” Luke says, rubbing Joanie’s back as he sits down.
“What happened?”
Clay launches into the story again, and Joanie’s features elongate in astonishment at all the right parts, and when Clay has finished, the six of them turn in their seats to search out Michele amongst the courtyard dwellers.
“She’s not coming to any more parties,” Clay says bitterly, his face souring as he looks in Michele’s direction. “Tell everyone you can. Make sure the whole class knows not to invite her to things. No one fucks us over and gets away with it.”
“Amen,” Joanie says, and Luke nods vigorously at her side.
Wally regards Michele with a thoughtful look, the one he has when trying to solve a Calculus problem.
But Baker, when Hannah glances subtly at her, wears a familiar ruptured expression, like her instinct to empathize is wrestling with her compulsion to keep social order.
“We can’t save her,” Hannah whispers under cover of the others opening their lunch bags.
Baker startles, blinking at Hannah like she only just noticed she was there. “She’s lashing out for a reason,” she mutters out of the side of her mouth. “Trying to get his attention.”
She doesn’t need to clarify who his refers to. They’ve had this conversation about Clay before. Hannah feels disproportionately relieved to return to their conversational shorthand, their knack for knowing each other’s thoughts. It’s like docking a ship in safe harbor.
The next morning, Mrs. Shackleford announces an impromptu assembly between first and second block. Hordes of students sweep into the gym and plop down on the bleachers while Mrs. Shackleford and Father Simon stand in the middle of the court, their eyes watching every movement.
Mrs. Shackleford speaks for three minutes about the standards of behavior she expects from St. Mary’s students.
She never mentions Clay’s Mardi Gras party, but the sophomores, juniors, and seniors avert their eyes, all of them understanding the message.
Only the freshmen look blankly around at each other, and Hannah, sitting on the end of a row in the senior section, hears a freshman several feet away whisper, “Is this about Marshall passing around that dirty cat comic yesterday?”
Then Father Simon steps forward with the air of someone trying to counsel a death row prisoner. For a full minute, he simply holds his interlocked hands up to his mouth until the freshmen start to rustle impatiently. Then he raises his head, his expression grave.
“Here we go,” Hannah mutters under her breath.
Father Simon berates them for a quarter of an hour. “I’m disgusted,” he says in a thin, scandalized voice. “I am at a loss for what to say. And to think that this behavior took place right on the cusp of Lent, and in the midst of a competition for the Diocesan Cup…”
Mrs. Shackleford stands off to his side, her expression hard to read. Across the gym, Ms. Carpenter has her brow furrowed.
Five minutes into the lecture, Hannah looks over at Clay.
His cheeks have colored with the lightest tinge of pink.
When he catches Hannah looking at him, he takes his hand away from his mouth and chews on a smile like he’s about to burst out laughing, but there’s an air of bravado about it.
She knows him well enough to know when he’s genuinely embarrassed.
The student body is unusually quiet after the assembly.
They return to their classrooms without talking, the boys lumbering with their hands in their pockets, the girls fiddling with the sleeves of their sweaters.
They cross paths with Michele when they reach the senior hallway, and she has the grace to look ashamed.
“Clay,” she says croakily, “I—”
“Don’t even,” Clay says, cutting her off. He pushes past her, and Hannah and her friends follow, and Michele stands limply at the lockers, her head bowed against the looks of revulsion the other seniors throw her.
When Hannah and Baker step into their English classroom, the energy is stilted and subdued. Their classmates lean on the backs of their chairs, grumbling softly to each other. The murmuring lasts until Ms. Carpenter shuts the classroom door and turns to look at them with a sympathetic smile.
“Tough assembly, huh?”
It’s like a dam bursting. Everyone launches into loud complaints, shouting over each other, gesticulating angrily. Ms. Carpenter’s eyebrows arch comically as she lets them blow off steam.
“Okay,” she says finally. “So you didn’t appreciate Father Simon’s tone. To be honest with you, neither did I. But what about the substance of what he said? Don’t you think he had a point?”
“Come on, Ms. C, high school parties are just a given,” Michael Ramby says. “He can’t get mad at us for doing something teenagers have done forever.”
“What’s the big deal, anyway?” Jessica asks. “What’s so bad about parties? Adults always act like they’re the worst thing in the world.”
“Yes, because adults are terrified of teenage partying,” Ms. Carpenter says.
“Why? Like, what do they think is gonna happen, we’re all gonna be in the bathroom doing lines of coke?”
Hannah stiffens at the word bathroom. Is it her imagination, or does Baker do the same?
“Some of your parents probably worry about that, sure,” Ms. Carpenter says.
“Ms. Carpenter, you know we’re not doing that kind of crap,” Allison says.
Ms. Carpenter shifts onto her high wooden stool at the front of the classroom.
She crosses her legs, her long, trendy skirt falling over them.
“Adults are afraid of parties,” she says, leaning forward to look at them all, “because they remember, very acutely, what parties are like. The kind of … madness that pervades. How powerful it makes you feel, and special, and loose, but also how untethered it can make you feel. The things that can happen when you let that feeling go too far.”
Hannah breathes in the silence.
“What do you mean?” Jackson asks.
“Someone tell me how you feel when you’re at a party,” Ms. Carpenter says.
“Really good.” Michael grins. “I feel really good.”
Ms. Carpenter gestures to indicate that she expected that response.
“Right. Parties can be very liberating, and that’s their appeal.
Alcohol can be liberating, music can be liberating, the absence of parents can be liberating.
The normal rules don’t apply, right? It’s just you and your friends throwing caution to the wind, trying things you wouldn’t normally try, or wish you were brave enough to try when you’re sober. Sex, drugs, the list goes on.”
At the mention of sex, a prickle of electricity runs through the room. Everyone around Hannah has their face turned toward Ms. Carpenter with a hungry, rapt expression.
“But sometimes, when you feel especially liberated, things can go too far. You devolve into an invincible little kid, doing whatever you want, taking the world as if it’s all yours, forsaking the rules without thinking through the consequences.
Adults—especially pious adults—are terrified of that because they don’t trust that our innermost, primal, natural selves are truly good.
It’s that ancient Adam and Eve fear, that terror that, if left to our own devices, we’ll choose evil over innocence.
And honestly, sometimes, it’s hard to tell them apart from each other. And that is what scares adults.”
The classroom of students sits frozen. It’s so quiet that Hannah can hear someone’s watch ticking behind her.
Her gut twists beneath her skin, and her pulse accelerates like she’s about to leap from her desk and sprint through the hallways.
To her left, Baker’s face is sickly pale, the way she looked just before she fainted at her volleyball match in ninth grade.
If left to our own devices, we’ll choose evil over innocence.
“I don’t believe that,” Hannah says into the silence. Her voice is so loud and jarring that it shocks her. Ms. Carpenter’s eyes skip to her in surprise.
Everyone turns to look at Hannah, and suddenly she feels like a train careening off track, helpless to stop herself. Why did she open her mouth? Why is she about to do it again?
“I don’t think Father Simon has thought about any of that stuff,” she continues. “I doubt he’s ever even been to a party. And if he has, then he’s probably just bitter, or jealous, because he couldn’t get a hookup to save his life.”