Chapter Thirteen
But rizzing people up is hard.
The rest of the day is devoted to fun, since, as we all know, scheduled fun is the best kind of fun. They split us up. Khoi and Obi get assigned to other groups, and I quickly lose track of them.
Mom and Michael sent Olive and me to overnight summer camp one year, so I recognize the classic bonding games: human knot, get-to-know-you bingo and such.
But the rock-paper-scissors tournament spirals into an argument about whether the game needs blockchain integration, and two truths and a lie quickly becomes a circlejerk where everyone is humblebragging about their prestigious internships.
Two truths and a lie: I worked at Google, I worked at , I worked at Microsoft! (The lie is Microsoft.)
I try talking to different people at each activity.
I meet a brother-sister pair from Illinois who speak only in chess moves, a purple-haired girl who tries to recruit me into her crypto cult, and a guy who spends ten minutes explaining his theory about how having multiple girlfriends is actually the best approach to dating.
Honestly, I’m shocked he could even get one girlfriend.
By the time we get to the trust fall exercise, I’m seriously considering just letting myself hit the ground. Then someone taps my shoulder. I turn to see an Asian girl with auburn hair, a faint sunburn on her cheeks, and a frilly pink sundress.
“Hiya, I’m Stella from Texas,” she says. She has a slight drawl. “You’re Aisha’s roommate, right? We go to the same boarding school.”
“Char,” I say, surprised that she knows. That means Aisha must’ve mentioned me to other people. Maybe she’s not actually trying to avoid me.
She grins, revealing these lime-green gel braces. “Want to risk potential concussions together?”
Stella turns out to be shockingly normal: she doesn’t mention her IQ or grill me on my GitHub commits, and she has decent opinions on the latest season of White Lotus.
We end up doing the rest of the activities together.
The last event of the night is a yacht party with some Alpha Fellows sponsors.
My social battery is super drained, and I’m tempted to retreat back to my room and maybe FaceTime Lola.
When Stella hears that, she gasps in mock disbelief. “Girlie, it’s a yacht! You have to go.”
“I’ve been on a yacht before,” I protest. Okay, it was last summer when I was picking up shifts at the Lucky Panda. We were hired to cater a wedding reception, which ended abruptly before dessert because the groom got caught with a bridesmaid in the bathroom. But still.
“Char, it’ll be fun. We’ll dance together.” She pauses. “Well, my boyfriend will probably also want to dance.”
Third-wheeling isn’t my idea of fun, but I want her to like me, so I agree.
As soon as we get on the boat, I’m tempted to belly-flop into the Atlantic.
Lights flash hot pink, then orange, then lime green.
It’s hot and loud and crowded. Even the ice sculpture—is that supposed to be Edvin Nilsen’s head?
—is half melted. The music is screechy. Newton’s Second Law states that the more obnoxious a song is, the louder it must be played.
Stella and I exchange looks.
“We could go find your boyfriend?” I venture.
She squints. “Don’t see him right now. Let’s go get something to drink.”
We try to weave through the crush, but there’s a huge swarm of people around the bar area. There’s barely enough room to breathe.
“Baby!” A scrawny guy wearing a knit beanie (in the summer?) appears out of nowhere. He clamps his mouth onto Stella’s, and I watch them do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for a good minute.
In my head, the National Geographic baritone voiceover returns. We observe two adolescent humans pressing their food-intake orifices together. The evolutionary purpose of this display is unclear.
When they finally break apart, she looks like a fish gasping for air. “Hiya, Lucas,” she manages. “This is Char from Oregon. Char, Lucas. Lucas, Char.”
“Hmm,” he says, barely looking at me.
“We’re trying to get something to drink, but the line for the bar is ridiculous,” she continues.
“Here. I have something.” He hands Stella his Hydro Flask water bottle. After she takes a swig, she passes it to me. I take a large, grateful gulp.
The liquid goes down with a fire that makes my eyes sting. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. I immediately spit out whatever didn’t invade my throat. Oh my God. They’re trying to poison me!
Both Stella and Lucas burst out laughing.
I sputter, “What the hell?”
“Did you think that was water? It’s vodka.” He turns to Stella. “Baby. The venture capitalists are here.”
As I cough and cough, she asks, “Even Reynolds?”
“Especially Reynolds.”
“He didn’t get back to me about writing a recommendation letter,” Stella says. “You think I can go and ask him?”
“Maybe in a bit. All of them are swarming that kid. The dorky one with the Crocs. Khoi.”
Khoi?
Stella shrugs. “Let’s dance.” And then they walk away as if I’m not even there. Cool.
I trail them onto the dance floor and try to vibe with the music.
Most people here don’t seem to know how to dance.
There are a few girls bringing the TikTok moves, and a couple of guys who don’t seem to care what anybody else thinks.
But the vast majority of people on the dance floor are sort of bouncing up and down on the balls of their feet. It’s awkward city out here.
The DJ is blasting something that sounds like pots and pans being thrown down a flight of stairs, when a wave of seasickness sweeps over me.
It’s a fluttering in my stomach, but not like butterflies. More like bumblebees, their tiny stingers pricking my insides. I stumble.
“Excuse me,” I say to nobody in particular. Maybe I should head to the bathroom. There better be a bathroom, right? Do all yachts have bathrooms? I mean, they must. Where else would people hook up?
But it’s too loud and too stuffy and too much. I need to get out of here ASAP.
The evening sea breeze kisses my face as I stagger out of the boat interior and find a spot near the railing.
I take greedy slurps of salted air. Yachts are terrible.
Completely terrible. I don’t get why rich people are so hyped about them.
They could be hyped about something else, like solving world hunger.
As I pray for the bees’ nest in my stomach to die, my phone buzzes with a text.
It’s the airline, letting me know that my luggage has been located and it’ll be available at BOS tomorrow morning for pickup.
Thank God. No more desperation showers with the bathroom hand soap.
I set an alarm to retrieve it before class.
My mood is suddenly way brighter. I want to tell somebody about this, even though nobody cares besides me. Maybe Stella. Nah, she’s too wrapped up with her obnoxious boyfriend. Maybe Khoi?
Back on the dance floor, I bump into Obi first. “Char!” he yells over the music. “Whadupppp.”
If he’s here, Khoi can’t be far away. “Where’s your roommate?” I ask.
“Whaaa?”
“WHERE’S KHOI?”
“Oh!” Obi jabs a finger in a vague direction. “Good luck getting to Mr. Popular, though.”
I spot Khoi in the corner, surrounded by actual adults. He’s talking to all of them, and he seems mildly terrified. It looks like a seven-on-one fight club for people wearing Patagonia.
“What’s he doing?”
“Schmoozing with the sponsors. They probably want to know what he’s building next. If they can write a check for his round. They’re like vultures.” He does this weird growl-clawing combo that tells me he’s never seen a vulture in his entire life.
“Why do they care about what a random teenager is building?”
Obi frowns. “Khoi’s not a rando teenager.” But before I can ask what he means, a Kendrick Lamar song comes on, and he whoops. “Sorry, can’t chat! This is the anthem of my soul.” He shuts his eyes and starts swaying to the beat. I don’t bother asking why a diss track is the anthem of his soul.
I wander toward Khoi. As I get closer, I spot Lucas and Stella huddled together instead of dancing. They keep shooting glares in the direction of Khoi and the suits.
“—so selfish,” Lucas is saying. “He doesn’t even need a rec letter. He’s going to get in everywhere.”
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Stella says quickly.
Lucas narrows his eyes at me. “Wait, you’re friends with Astor, right? Can you tell him to stop hogging all the attention?”
“Why are they talking to him?” I ask.
“Imposter Syndrome,” Stella says. “The video game? His video game?”
Everybody knows Imposter Syndrome. It went viral last year.
Gameplay is simple: There are six to ten people, and one or two are randomly assigned to be imposters.
The imposters have to kill everyone else while avoiding being found out.
I never really got into it. Mostly because I was bad at surviving past the first round.
“Like, he worked on it?”
“Like, he made it by himself? Or so he claims. He sold it to some private equity suits for almost a million dollars.” Lucas leans in closer. His breath has a familiar boozy stench. I resist the urge to slap a hand over my nose. “There’s something sus about his story, though.”
“What’s sus?”
“Guy is full Vietnamese, so why’s his last name Astor? I thought maybe he was a nepo baby, but there’s no info online about his family. Something is off. A teenager doesn’t just pop off like that unless he has connections.”
I should defend Khoi, but I don’t want to screw up my shot at teaming with Stella. She’s the only somewhat normal person I met today. And… what if Lucas is right? What if Khoi is some industry plant? I just met the kid, after all. What do I really know about him?
Lucas continues. “And he’s so weird! I talked to him the other day, and I swear to God he’s re—”
“Baby, you’re not allowed to use that word!” Stella says in a way that tells me he’s casually dropped this slur too many times before.
“Fine, he’s autistic. Is that politically correct enough for you?”
“Lucas, stoppp! You’re being mean,” Stella says, but she’s laughing.
Suddenly, the bees in my stomach are back. No, they’re wasps now. Poisonous and evil.
“Sorry, feeling sick,” I mumble.
I shove past random partygoers and bolt out into the fresh air. The pinprick of wind doesn’t fix whatever is wrong inside of me.
Something burns in my chest, and it takes a moment to identify the emotion. Shame.
At dinner yesterday, Khoi said Char must’ve worked even harder to get here when Diego implied I got accepted only because of my background.
He defended me. And I couldn’t do the same for him today, right now.
I so easily listened to Lucas’s garbage, even though the dude’s obviously seething with jealousy.
I spend the rest of the night leaning over the side of the yacht trying not to vomit.