10. Family Weekend #5
“Hey?” Charley says, though she means to say, HEY!
Ravenna opens her eyes. She looks as miserable as Charley feels, but Charley won’t let that distract her.
“You put my byline on the In and Out list,” she says.
“You have to send a retraction, like, right now. Email everyone. People think I’m claiming orgasms are In!
People are going to think I’m scheming”—Charley swallows East’s name; she will not say it—“a fifth-form repeat.”
Ravenna blinks. “I was trying to help you. You have this whole librarian-core thing going and I’m sorry, but people think you’re a freak. The In and Out list is cool, it’s funny. It’ll make everyone reconsider their opinion of you. They won’t believe you wrote it…”
“Because I didn’t write it!” Charley hisses.
“But you are cool and funny,” Ravenna says. “Better than funny—witty.”
Charley refuses to be won over. “Bullshit,” she says. “You wanted to print something people would talk about, and since we didn’t have any items for Page 114, you turned me into clickbait. Vodka Red Bulls? I don’t drink Red Bull, much less vodka. Print a retraction, Ravenna.”
Suddenly, Ravenna starts to cry, and Charley would like to snidely remind Ravenna that crying is Out—but then she wonders why Ravenna is alone on the Senior Sofa when she should be at the reception.
“What are you doing here?” Charley asks. “Where are your parents?”
“They didn’t come,” Ravenna says, wiping at her tears. “I have a brother who’s a fourth-former at Pomfret and it’s his Family Weekend as well.”
“But you’re a senior.”
Ravenna grimaces, and what can Charley think but that the elder Rapsicolis are like characters from The Godfather —her father is obsessed with the son and the bloodline; her mother has been silenced with gifts of furs and diamonds.
“They chose Dante,” Ravenna says.
Charley wishes there were something she could say, but of course there isn’t. If there was more room on the sofa, and if the sofa wasn’t strictly for seniors only, Charley would lie down next to Ravenna.
Charley’s phone buzzes. Her mother: I’m at the Paddock.
Charley looks at Ravenna and almost mentions the retraction one more time, but Ravenna has closed her eyes and Charley decides to let it be. They both have bigger things to worry about.
At the welcome reception, Davi leaves her parents and Saylem (introduced as “our creative director”) talking to Ms. Robbie and fixes herself a plate.
She smears golden crostini with creamy brie, then takes a scoop of hot artichoke dip, a handful of pita chips, a few coins of Italian salami, and a couple of crab cakes, which she dollops with mustard sauce before devouring the finger sandwiches: two cucumber, two egg salad, three pimento cheese.
She plucks a coconut shrimp off a tray, drags it through sweet and sour sauce, and pops it in her mouth. Delicious.
Mrs. Spooner appears at Davi’s elbow. “I’m envious,” she says, eyeing Davi’s plate. “You can eat whatever you want and still stay so thin.”
Davi struggles to keep her expression neutral.
People have been saying this, or similar, the entire time she’s been at Tiffin.
She has been celebrated, not for having a healthy appetite, but for having a healthy appetite and staying thin.
If she were plump (like Mrs. Spooner or like Olivia H-T), people would look at her plate and frown.
Davi wants to ask Mrs. Spooner if she would make that same comment to Dub Austin.
Of course she wouldn’t. Boys can eat whatever they want and look however they want.
But this reception is neither the time nor the place to engage in a debate about food, gender, and body image.
Davi just wants to stuff her face. She gives Mrs. Spooner a conspiratorial smile and wink as if to say, Yes, I know.
I’m SO lucky. She hoovers everything on her plate, then checks on her parents.
Her mother is gone (probably at the bar) so Ms. Robbie talks only to Davi’s father and Saylem.
Is Ms. Robbie wondering why the hell her parents brought their “creative director” to Family Weekend?
Davi sets her plate down and leaves the tent. A third-former enters with her parents in tow. She gives Davi a timid smile and nudges her mother. As soon as Davi passes by, she hears the girl whisper, “That’s Davi Banerjee, the influencer. She’s a queen.”
Not a queen, Davi thinks as she hurries down the path before cutting into the Sink.
She was a queen, maybe, this time last year.
Davi’s TikTok had gone viral; she was pursued by everyone from Kylie Jenner to Anthropologie.
She remembers how hyped she and Cinnamon were when Anthropologie delivered a full-length Luisa mirror to Davi’s dorm room for free.
The internet realizes that influencers aren’t always what they seem.
However, Davi is hiding some awfully big things.
For starters, her egregious (“notable for a negative reason”) verbal score on the PSAT.
(Posting her score might have brought awareness to people who don’t “test well,” but Davi doesn’t want anyone questioning her intelligence.)
Then Cinnamon died and Davi went dark, claiming the need for a “social media cleanse.” (Posting about Cinnamon might have been an opportunity to highlight mental health issues, but Davi needed to respect the privacy of Cinnamon’s family.)
Davi spent a quiet summer at her parents’ villa in Tuscany, where she sat by the pool; practiced her Italian by flirting with Paolo, the eighteen-year-old who tended their olive trees; walked to the Piazza Grande with her father for an afternoon espresso; and took pasta-making classes with her mother.
All of it was hashtag wholesome—and Davi enjoyed keeping it private.
She resurfaced on Instagram and TikTok at the end of the summer when she documented a weekend trip to Ibiza with her European friends.
It was a whirlwind of champagne, clubs, dancing, and three outfits a day, but what Davi’s followers didn’t hear about was her ennui (“boredom”).
At sixteen, she was already world-weary.
And there was no way Davi would ever reveal what she discovered when she returned to London to pack for school and finish her summer reading.
Namely, both her parents in bed with Saylem.
Davi bursts into the third-floor bathroom of the Sink and sticks her finger down her throat.
As her food comes back up, she replays her parents’ explanation: They’re polyamorous.
Saylem—some random American, from Cincinnati, who got a summer job interning at the British Museum —is now their girlfriend and should be treated with respect.
She’s our third, Ruby Banerjee said. Maybe not forever, but for now.
It was evident from her parents’ tone that they expected Davi to handle this announcement with equanimity (“mental calmness and composure”).
After all, the Banerjees were fashion people, constantly on the lookout for new creative inspiration.
That’s all this was, really, Davi’s father assured her.
An outlet for their artistic personalities.
Out of Office’s brand tagline was “where cutting edge meets comfort,” and though a third person added to their romantic and sexual relationship might seem odd at first, Davi would grow used to it.
Davi was repulsed by what she witnessed in the house the days before she returned to Tiffin.
She had hoped Saylem (the name alone made Davi shudder) would slip in and out of the house discreetly, but she was everywhere all the time—in the kitchen at six a.m. completely nude, preparing a pot of tea that she then carried on a tray to Davi’s parents’ bedroom; kissing Ruby’s neck while Ruby checked her email, which would then turn into a full-blown make-out session.
The house suddenly had a musky, nearly fishy odor, and Davi would hear her father moaning behind the closed door of his office.
Davi fought back images of lips and tongues and engorged genitals, her parents intertwined with this alabaster foreigner like slippery eels.
Saylem was like a siren who was luring Davi’s formerly cool and aloof parents to the underworld.
(Davi had chosen The Odyssey for her summer reading.)
It might have been more palatable if Saylem had been interesting, but she was nothing more than a very pale, extremely affected mynah bird who repeated Davi’s parents’ thoughts and views back to them in a way they must have found seductive.
The day before Davi flew back to school, she cut off all her hair. Her parents barely noticed.
Davi started puking the first week of school, though not all the time, not after every meal—just when she felt the urge to be empty. To be cleaned out. To be in fucking control.
Now she’s familiar with every out-of-the-way bathroom on campus, though her preference is this one, on the third floor of the Sink. No one is ever here.
Davi rinses out her mouth, washes her hands, regards herself in the mirror. She has scoured both Meditation TikTok and Mindfulness TikTok, but neither helped.
As she leaves the Sink, she receives a text from Willow Levy: Charley Hicks’s stepfather is a total daddy. Come see.
It figures, Davi thinks. It figures that Charley Hicks, who is too arrogant to care what anyone here thinks, would have a hot stepdad while Davi has her parents’ human sex toy to contend with.
She can’t wait for this weekend to be over.
By the time Simone Bergeron reaches the top of the fifth flight of winding, wrought-iron stairs that lead to the roof of the chapel, she’s sucking wind—but not so for Mr. Stringfellow, Royce’s father, who informs Simone that he rises every morning at five to ride his Peloton, then goes for a three-mile run along the Charles, no matter the weather.
He checks his Fitbit as Simone catches her breath.