17. The Kringle
In the second week of December, packages from Revolve, Retrofete, and Reformation pile up on the mail table outside the common room of Classic South, overtaking the gingerbread house display.
The parcels contain prospective dresses for the Kringle—and the first-floor hallway soon rivals a runway at New York Fashion Week.
Davi has been dreaming about the Kringle since she got to Tiffin: a special evensong service for fifth- and sixth-formers followed by an elegant holiday party. Students dress up; some go with dates.
Davi and Cinnamon had shopped for Kringle dresses as early as the previous Christmas.
Davi bought a half dozen, which now hang in her closet.
She hears other girls out in the hallway modeling for one another.
She knows they’re waiting for her to poke her head out and offer a blunt assessment in the style of Nicky Campbell.
But Davi is uninspired. She feels a fresh wave of grief about Cinnamon and she can’t bear to think about the holiday break—three weeks stuck with her parents and Saylem.
On the other side of the door, she hears ebullient (“extremely lively, enthusiastic”) squealing. Sixth-former Teague Baldwin has asked Madison J. to go to the Kringle with him. Davi rolls her eyes; everyone is reacting as though Madison J. just got engaged.
Maybe Davi should get a date for the Kringle.
Maybe if she has her own relationship to focus on, she’ll be better able to stomach her parents’ threesome.
The question is who? The boys at this school are children.
She’d happily ask her father to fly Paolo in from Italy for the event (the other girls would die ) or ask Olivia H-T to set Davi up with her cute cousin (Olivia owes her after that weird Thanksgiving)—but the Kringle is for Tiffin students only.
Hakeem Pryce is a possibility. He’s with that third-former, Cassie Lee, a future queen bee, but third-formers aren’t allowed to attend the Kringle even as guests.
So, Hakeem and Davi could go as friends.
Taylor can’t get bent about it; she’ll go with Dub.
But does Davi really want to insert herself into that messy situation? She does not.
There’s only one other person at Tiffin who’s worthy of Davi Banerjee…
and that’s East. Davi sort of resents the guy.
He’s been granted all kinds of special privileges—he keeps his truck in the Back Lot and he takes English as an independent study, which is basically a joke—because his father is president of the board and the biggest donor Tiffin has seen in the past 114 years.
Davi will overlook these annoyances: East is older, he’s hot, they’ll look good in the pics, her followers will eat him up.
She sends him an iMessage because he’s not on Instagram or Snapchat.
Do you want to go to the Kringle together?
She hesitates before she sends this; she has never before texted East. They’d exchanged numbers during the Move-In Day cookout when they were third-formers and Davi assumed they’d be friends.
They are not friends. Davi became internet famous, East became an enigma (“a person or thing that is mysterious, hard to understand”).
She edits the text to read, Hey East, it’s Davi. Do you want to go to the Kringle together? She presses send. She doesn’t feel weird about being the one to ask; she knows she’s intimidating and not even East would be brave enough to ask her.
He texts back right away: Hey Davi, thanks, good idea. But I already have a date.
Shit, Davi thinks. She wasn’t expecting this because East never mingles with Tiffin commoners. Were the rules bent for him again? Is he importing someone from New York? Coco Arquette? Lexi Underwood?
Davi texts back. I love that for you!!! Who are you taking?
Three dots appear, then disappear. He doesn’t want to tell her. Or maybe there isn’t anyone. Maybe he just said that because he doesn’t want to go with Davi.
There it goes, she thinks. The last of her self-esteem.
Then her phone buzzes with a text: I’m taking Charley Hicks.
Davi marches down the hall, passing Olivia H-T, who is modeling a holly-green knit dress with faux fur at the cuffs and hem. The fur is a fun touch, but someone with Olivia H-T’s body type should not be wearing a knit.
“You can do better,” Davi says.
“Wait, Davi!” Olivia H-T says. “Can you—”
But Davi is on a mission. She opens the door to 111 and finds Charley lying on her bed reading The Crucible. Shocker.
Charley’s eyes flick over the pages to Davi. “What?”
“I can’t believe you aren’t using the SparkNotes,” Davi says. “But of course that’s what makes you you. You read the original.”
“I feel seen, thank you,” Charley deadpans.
Davi steps in and closes the door behind her.
“By all means, make yourself at home.”
Davi smiles. Any other girl at Tiffin would kill to have Davi Banerjee in her room—but not Charley. She’s impervious (“immune”) to Davi’s charms. “Are you going to the Kringle with East?”
This gets Charley’s attention. She sits up, sets the book down. “Where did you hear that? It’s not on Zip Zap, is it?”
“No,” Davi says. “East told me himself. I asked if he wanted to go together and he said he was taking you.”
Charley sinks back into her pillows. “Yeah.”
“Can I just ask? What’s up with you? You’ve been asked to the Kringle by the hottest guy at Tiffin and you don’t even look excited. You look bored. Do you think you’re too good for East? Too good for any of us?”
Charley studies Davi for a second. “I do not think that, no. I’m just socially awkward.”
“I figured that much out day one,” Davi says. “But you don’t even try.”
“Chasing is Out,” Charley says. “I figure if I present my authentic self, my people will find me.”
“Is that what happened with East? He found you?”
Charley’s eyebrows rise and her lips turn up just a tick. “I have no idea. He’s hard to read.”
“Amen to that,” Davi says. “So what are you going to wear?”
“Wear?”
“To the Kringle?”
Charley glances toward her closet, which was what Davi was afraid of. “No. You can’t wear a khaki skirt and monogrammed sweater to this.” She pauses. “Come to my room.”
“I will,” Charley says, “under one condition.”
Under one condition? Davi thinks. Are they on the CW? “Which is?”
“You have to get help with your… issue.”
Whoa! Davi nearly storms out of the room. Davi’s “issue” is none of Charley’s business. “Forget it,” Davi says. “You do realize I came in here to help you, right?”
“I want to help you too,” Charley says. “I don’t even really like you, Davi. But I can acknowledge that you have some great qualities—you’re strong, charismatic, a natural leader. I’m sure you feel pressure to be perfect on the outside—”
Davi holds up a hand. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, please. You don’t know anything about my life. Nobody does. I’ll handle my own issues if and when I fucking feel like it.”
Charley studies Davi for one unsettling moment. “That’s a more honest answer than I expected, I guess,” Charley says, swinging her feet to the floor. She sighs. “Fine. I’ll let you dress me up like a doll.”
Preparation for the Kringle is a lot like the scene before First Dance: Les filles crowd into the bathroom, vying for sink space, while the JBL speaker blares “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” followed by “Oklahoma Smokeshow.” Simone thought the girls might listen to holiday music, but she was na?ve.
Simone is wearing a long black dress with long sleeves and the slightest boatneck.
She received a terse email from Cordelia Spooner a few days earlier, reminding her that although she’s young, she should dress “modestly and appropriately” for the Kringle.
The dress you wore to First Dance was several inches too short, Cordelia said.
We like all faculty to lead by example, especially someone as influential as you.
When the girls see Simone, they shriek. “That dress is so Crucible -core.”
Yes, Simone thinks. She feels like she’s back in the seventeenth century being disciplined by the town elders.
What’s different about the Kringle is that Charley Hicks is participating (rather than holing up in her room with Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, as Simone expected). She took one of the first showers, then slipped into Davi’s room.
The other girls appear in the hallway, hair half up or in curlers, in bras and panties; Tilly Benbow wears her “transitional garment”—an old dress shirt of her father’s, which hangs to her knees and has Flawless Filter smudged all over the collar.
She likes it because it buttons, so she won’t mess up her hair taking it off.
The girls are trying to appear like they’re not loitering around Davi’s closed door.
Simone overhears Olivia H-T say, “I don’t get it. The girl is such a freak.”
“Olivia,” Simone says sharply.
A little while later, nearly everyone is ready. Madison J. puts on a parka over her little black dress and waits for Teague Baldwin by the front door. Madison R. is in her white robe because she sings in the choir; Olivia P. wears a red robe because she is in the handbell choir.
“Do you have a date, Miss Bergeron?” Willow Levy asks.
“I do not,” Simone says, though of course Rhode suggested that they “go together.” Simone told him she didn’t feel that was appropriate. The majority of girls on her floor were going solo and Simone didn’t want them to feel awkward about it. “I’ll just see you there,” she said.
At ten minutes to seven, it’s time to head over to the chapel.
“Allez!” Simone calls out. Everyone puts on coats, slips into heels or boots. The air in the hallway is thick with Flowerbomb perfume.
Finally, the door to Davi’s room opens and Davi steps out wearing a tiny red crushed-velvet dress and a pair of sky-high black Louboutin sandals with studded straps. She’s stunning and sophisticated, but this, Simone expected. Davi closes the door behind her.
“Is Charley not coming?” Simone asks.
“Oh, she is,” Davi says.