26. Tiffinpalooza #2
Cassie starts to shade with the flat edge of her pencil. Her perspective study is damn near perfect. “Don’t be daft,” she says. Daft, Olivia notes, is a word stolen straight from Davi. “There’s something going on.”
It can only be happening on Saturday night, Olivia thinks.
The rest of their week is fully accounted for.
On Saturday evenings there’s always some kind of activity, and this week it’s a badminton tournament in the gym.
Olivia suspects this is way beneath Davi, but it turns out Davi is going and so are the other girls on the floor.
Fine, Olivia will go as well. Shockingly, Charley asks Olivia to be her partner against a couple of fourth-formers.
When Charley and Olivia win the match, Davi jumps out of the bleachers to give them both a high five.
Charley and Olivia quickly lose the next match to Teague Baldwin and Benj, the third-form offensive lineman, but Olivia doesn’t care.
She feels herself drawn back into the fold.
After badminton, Olivia goes with Charley and Davi to the Grille for milkshakes; they’re both so friendly to her that Olivia gets suspicious. Do they know Olivia is on to them?
They all walk back to Classic South. Miss Bergeron is doing a Bridgerton binge in the common room. She’s ordered petit fours from a bakery in Haydensboro, and some of the girls are making herbal tea in the microwave.
“Join us!” Miss Bergeron cries out. She’s always dialed up on Saturday nights, as though she’s trying to compensate for how dull Tiffin is on the weekends.
Olivia is tempted. The petit fours look good, though she’s just had a Reese’s milkshake. Charley declines—she hates Bergeron, as everyone knows, and she never sets foot in the common room. Davi yawns, or fakes a yawn, and says, “Thanks, but I’m going to sleep.”
Olivia doesn’t have to answer because she is, as ever, invisible. She goes into her room, closes the door, and begins her vigil.
She lies in bed on her phone. She could easily stay up all night scrolling Instagram and TikTok, even her mother’s pathetic Facebook account.
Tonight, this bad habit serves her. The Bridgerton binge ends, and Olivia H-T hears Miss Bergeron bidding everyone good night.
Olivia pops into the bathroom to execute her skin care routine, which revives her.
She then goes back to her room and keeps her door cracked until Bergeron calls out, “Bonne nuit, mes chéries!” and, one by one, all the lights go out.
Olivia continues to scroll—fashion, makeup, singing pit bulls—until her eyeballs feel like they’re bleeding. She closes them for just one second, then jolts awake. She checks her phone: it’s one thirty. Shit! she thinks. She eases open her door and peers into the dark, quiet hallway.
When she tiptoes down to Davi’s room to press her ear against the door, she hears nothing, but what did she expect?
She cracks the door and peers in. Davi has room-darkening shades, but even so, Olivia can tell she’s not there.
She hits the light on her phone. Davi’s covers are pulled back; her Roller Rabbit pajamas are on the floor. The room smells freshly of perfume.
Olivia closes the door, then heads to 111 South: Charley’s room. Olivia opens the door with no idea of how she’ll explain what she’s doing… but she doesn’t have to. Charley’s bed is empty.
Ditto Taylor. Ditto Willow Levy. Ditto Madison J. Madison J., who is Head Prefect next year, is gone ?
Olivia H-T opens the door to Tilly Benbow’s room, fearing everyone on the floor has been included in the sneak-out except her.
Or maybe she’s having a waking nightmare where all the other girls on her floor have been abducted?
But Tilly is in bed, wearing a silk bonnet to protect her precious blond hair, and snoring like the old man in the children’s song.
Olivia returns to her room, her whole body buzzing. How should she handle this? she wonders. She has so many choices.
It’s during their seventh consecutive Saturday night at Priorities when East chimes a spoon against a glass and makes an announcement: This will be the final gathering of the school year.
The girls all groan, except for Charley, who must have been warned this was coming. “We can squeeze in one more time before Prize Day,” Willow says.
“We could,” East says, “but we won’t.” He offers no further explanation, nor does he need to: He’s the boss.
Dub feels as crushed as the girls but he nods along in agreement.
In some sense, it’s a relief. They’re fucking lucky they haven’t been busted.
Dub could have lost his scholarship, if he was even allowed to stay. His mother would have killed him.
“We’ll resume next year as sixth-formers,” East says. “For tonight, let’s drink up.”
Dub doesn’t have to be told twice. He sidles up to the bar for another Ranch Water, his third. Hakeem and Cassie Lee had broken up, and Dub knows this means Hakeem and Taylor will get back together eventually. They’re on the sofa now, talking.
Dub downs his third drink, then his fourth, and he’s not alone: Everyone else is drinking more—and tonight, East pours with a heavy hand.
Royce hoots and everyone turns to see Hakeem and Taylor making out on the sofa. The other girls check for Dub’s reaction, but he’s careful not to give one. Hakeem and Taylor together are as inevitable as death.
Dub wonders if East will push back last call. He hears Davi say, “Just thirty more minutes, since it’s the last time?” But at two forty-five, the lights of the Ice Palace chandelier flicker, the cue for everyone to finish their drinks.
As usual, East stays behind to clean up, but what’s unusual is that Royce leaves with the girls. He and Willow are going to join the Harkness Society tonight.
Dub can sense Hakeem wondering if he too should leave with the girls, but Dub nudges him toward the door of the north tunnel. “It’s not worth getting caught, man. You’re Ivy League bound this time next year.”
“So is Royce,” Hakeem says.
“Not if he gets Honor Boarded.”
This lands. Hakeem turns on the light of his phone, which illuminates their way down the tunnel.
It’s been a long time since the two of them have been alone like this.
Hakeem must be thinking the same thing because, as they climb the stairs up to the cellar, he says, “Dude, if I ask you a question, will you tell me the fucking truth?”
Dub’s gut suddenly turns to liquid; he burps up tequila. “Yeah, bruh, of course.”
“Did you fuck Taylor? Because she’s telling me she’s still a virgin. I just find it hard to believe that the two of you didn’t…”
“Nah, man,” Dub says. “Taylor and I never even kissed.”
Hakeem starts laughing; he punches Dub’s shoulder, which throws Dub off-balance and nearly launches him down the stairs. Hakeem reaches out to steady him. “Whoa, bro, sorry, but you’re kidding me, right?”
“I didn’t kiss her, didn’t touch her,” Dub says. He pushes open the door at the top of the stairs. “I told you, we’re friends.”
“Dub, stop…”
“I’m serious, Hakeem.”
Hakeem shakes his head. “So you just… what? You really never had a thing for her? Really?”
“Really,” Dub says, his voice husky. He’s almost drunk enough to say, It isn’t Taylor I have a thing for.
Sunday, it rains. Simone gets an alert that the boys’ baseball game against Brownwell-Mather has been postponed and there’s nothing else on the schedule.
Simone hears some of the girls leaving for brunch at the Paddock, and although she dreams all week about Chef’s eggs Benedict with extra hollandaise poured over her hash browns, the dining hall has become a minefield.
She has to avoid not only Rhode, but now Honey Vandermeid as well.
Honey, who tried to kiss Simone in the back of their Uber several weeks ago, then pretended like it was no big deal, and who has proceeded to freeze Simone out as though Simone were the one who did something wrong.
It’s so unfair, Simone thinks. Rhode behaves badly, Honey behaves badly, and Simone pays the price.
With nothing on her docket all day, Simone is free to go to the weight room and start working on her “summer body,” or she can write prompts for her students’ final papers. But why waste a rainy Sunday being productive?
She rummages through her stash in the closet.
Of the twelve bottles she brought back from her parents’ house after spring break, only four remain.
Well, three and a half. There’s half a bottle of decent burgundy, two bottles of fumé blanc, then the prize: a bottle of Billecart-Salmon champagne.
Simone’s mother loves “Billie”; she never fails to mention that Madame Billecart and Monsieur Salmon were the first married couple to hyphenate their names.
(Is this true? Simone has never bothered to check.)
Simone was planning on saving the Billie for a special occasion, by which she supposes she meant Prize Day, though the end of that day requires Simone to do thorough room-cleaning checks, which cannot be accomplished while shit-faced.
It would be better to drink the Billie on a day when Simone has nothing going on. Like today, for example.
The bottle is room temperature and the Billie deserves a proper chilling. Simone sticks the bottle in the freezer compartment of her mini fridge and sets her timer for three hours, which will bring her to two p.m. A perfectly respectable time to start drinking, she thinks.
She’s at her desk drafting possible essay prompts—it’s much easier to work knowing she has champagne waiting—when there’s a tentative knock on her door.
“Come in!” Simone calls out, but no one enters.
When Simone cracks open the door, she finds Olivia Hudezech-Tottingknaffer on the other side, looking very grave indeed.
Simone ushers Olivia inside, taking a beat, as usual, to read the quote in red in the center of the papered side of the door: “I think most of humankind would agree, the hard part of high school is the people.” Simone had been tempted to rip the paper down and start fresh because it’s such a negative sentiment.
Recently, however, she has found herself in complete agreement with it.
“Come sit,” Simone says, indicating the stool at the foot of Simone’s bed.
“No, I don’t… I just…”
“Olivia,” Simone says. “What’s up?”
Olivia’s facial expression is giving Someone’s dead or dying, or possibly Plan B failed and I’m pregnant. “If I tell you something, it’s confidential, right?” Olivia H-T says. “As in, you couldn’t even say it was me who told you?”
Simone nods; now, she’s intrigued. She reminds herself that Olivia H-T is insecure, which causes her to be overly dramatic, and she’s a bit of a pick-me girl besides that.
“Everything you tell me stays in this room. If it needs to leave this room to ensure someone’s safety, your anonymity is assured.
” There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but Simone won’t go into all that until she hears what Olivia has to say.
“Some of the girls on the floor—Charley, Davi, Willow, Madison J., and Taylor,” she says. “They’re sneaking out. Last night, and I think maybe every Saturday, they go somewhere. Maybe to the Alibi? In Andrew Eastman’s truck?”
At the mention of East’s name, Simone tenses. “I’m sorry?” she says. “What makes you think this?”
Olivia H-T’s eyes flick toward the door. Simone says, “It’s okay, you’re doing the right thing. You can tell me.”
Olivia describes entering Davi’s room a while ago and seeing the silk dress on the floor.
She tells Simone about Davi’s headache and then, in the days following, the whispering, the unusual groupings.
They’re all in on it, Olivia says. Five girls from their floor.
Olivia started checking their rooms, including last night at one thirty.
They were all gone. Olivia couldn’t explain it, but Tilly thought they were going somewhere in East’s truck. The Alibi in Haydensboro.
The Alibi is a trigger. Simone can’t believe that Honey turned out to be every bit the predator that Rhode was. Honey was worse because Simone had trusted her.
“You wouldn’t wear a silk dress to the Alibi,” Simone says. “Plus, they’re all underage.”
“Davi has a good fake,” Olivia says.
Simone thinks about the bartender, Jefferson. There’s no way he’d serve a bunch of high school kids. They aren’t going to the Alibi. The Wooden Duck? But that doesn’t sound right either. They aren’t going off campus. So then, Simone wonders, where are they going?
Suddenly, she knows.
She gives Olivia a hug. “I’ll take things from here,” she says. “Thank you for letting me know.”
Olivia breathes out against Simone’s shoulder. “I’m just worried about their safety,” she says.
No, she isn’t, Simone thinks. She’s jealous, and bitter that she wasn’t included. Like any tattletale, she wants to see them go down.
And oh, they will.
When Olivia H-T leaves, Simone takes a few intentional breaths.
She tucks her essay prompts away and pulls the Billie from the freezer, wrapping her hands around the base. It’s not quite cold enough, but no matter. She quietly pops the cork and pours some in the mug she uses for tea. She needs to think.