8. The Spins
Somehow, the impossible has happened: Charley has persuaded East to go to First Dance.
“I can’t help thinking the only reason he agreed is because of Pippa,” Charley says to Davi.
They’re in Davi’s room getting ready, which means squeezing themselves into slutty black dresses.
Or maybe it’s not slutty if it’s couture: Both Davi and Charley are wearing custom OOO, Davi’s parents’ label.
Davi’s is a set—bralette top and micromini—and Charley’s “dress” is composed of crisscrossing straps and buckles.
“S she couldn’t get in any trouble this year, college was too important.
“I love that you’re so extremely weird,” Davi said as she looped a sports whistle around Charley’s neck (the whistles for sixth-form girls are another inexplicable Tiffin First Dance tradition).
“Liam left a while ago,” East says. “He wanted to get there. I guess O’Malley didn’t know about the First Dance black shirt thing, so I lent him one of mine.”
East is wearing a plain black T-shirt (which, Davi would point out, is a Rick Owens that retails for four hundred dollars, something Charley can’t quite fathom) and jeans and black Sambas and is the hottest person on the planet. But that’s not why Charley loves him. She loves him because he’s kind.
They enter the Teddy and head straight for the Egg, where the dance is held. Stationed at the entrance with their clipboards, Ms. Robinson and Mrs. Spooner are all smiles.
“The last to arrive as always!” Mrs. Spooner says. She holds open the door, and Charley hears David Guetta’s lyric “I just want to let it go for the night…”
“Memories,” Charley thinks. Three hours from now, that’s all this moment will be.
Davi blasts her whistle, and Charley pulls East by the hand as they run to the center of the dance floor.
Taylor has had butterflies since she woke up.
Tonight’s the night, she thinks.
She will lose her virginity to Hakeem in the Schoolhouse. She will, like an elite group of Tiffin Thoroughbreds before her, join the Harkness Society.
She almost backed out because Hakeem is being weird about Dub. Hakeem left Chapel after Dub did the bravest thing Taylor has ever witnessed.
“What was up with that?” Taylor asked him later. “Our best friend bares his soul and you bail on him?”
“I didn’t bail on him,” Hakeem said defensively. “Just let me deal with it, please, Tay. Don’t insert yourself in the middle.”
He knew her well—because she did want to get in the middle. She wanted Hakeem to promise that Dub’s announcement wouldn’t change things.
But since his senior speech, Dub has been avoiding Hakeem and Taylor in the Paddock; he waves to them but sits with Royce, Willow, and Madison J. instead. This prompted Taylor to ask Hakeem if things had been uncomfortable in the locker room.
“Yeah, a little,” Hakeem said. “We can all be as woke as we want, but that doesn’t make a gay dude in the showers any less awkward.”
Taylor sighed. “You need time to process.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she said. “Soon it’ll be just another aspect of Dub. Like him listening to country music while you prefer hip-hop. He’s the same person.”
“Can we drop it, Tay? Please?”
“Just say the three of us are still best friends.” Taylor squeezed Hakeem’s hand. “I want to hear you say it.”
Hakeem huffed. “The three of us are still best friends.”
“Are we, though?” she asked.
“Bro,” Hakeem said.
Whenever Taylor saw Dub around campus, he was smiling or laughing. She remembered how, the first few days of school, Dub was constantly checking his phone. Taylor gasped. Had Dub met someone over the summer? Not a cute outdoorsy girl, but a cute outdoorsy guy?
She wants to ask him, but she hasn’t had an opportunity.
As she finishes getting ready for First Dance—she’s wearing the requisite skintight, extremely short black dress and one of Coach Bosworth’s whistles around her neck—she realizes she should probably forget about Dub’s love life for a few hours and focus on her own.
She spritzes herself with Jake’s House perfume, reapplies her lip gloss even though Hakeem will kiss it off, and rubs glow balm into her modest cleavage.
When she emerges from her room, she finds Olivia H-T lurking in the hallway.
Olivia is wearing a short black lace-and-sequin dress that she couldn’t have pulled off in previous years; her hair is down with two tiny braids nearly hidden in the pieces framing her face.
The only sign that this is the same Pick-Me Olivia H-T is that the dress came with a matching black sequined collar.
Is she a cat? Taylor nearly suggests Olivia take the collar off—less is more—but whatever, she isn’t Olivia’s stylist.
“Hakeem is waiting for you out front,” Olivia H-T says.
Taylor is suddenly so scared she wants to run back to her room, grab her Jellycat, and hide under the covers.
Olivia H-T gives her a knowing smile. Did she somehow intuit that Taylor will be joining the Harkness Society tonight?
Taylor hasn’t told anyone, and she’s made it clear that if Hakeem tells anyone, Taylor is calling the whole thing off.
But Olivia H-T likes to slink around, popping up when you least expect it.
Who knows what she’s overheard? Taylor can’t believe Olivia wasn’t behind the Zip Zap app last year.
Taylor wants Olivia to go away so she can finish freaking out in peace.
“Are Hakeem and Dub still friends?” Olivia asks.
How does the girl know exactly which buttons to press? “Of course, Olivia,” Taylor says. She wants to add, What the fuck is wrong with you? But Taylor is the head of Honor Board this year and, as such, must demonstrate a certain decorum. “I’m going. I’ll see you over there.”
“See you there,” Olivia says. “I’m just waiting for Tilly to get off the phone…”
Taylor doesn’t care. She breezes past Olivia and out the door with a confidence she doesn’t quite feel.
But when she sees Hakeem waiting for her—holding a long-stemmed red rose, how sweet!—she experiences an unexpected surge of anticipation.
Tonight’s the night!
When the chapel bells toll five on the afternoon of First Dance, Audre receives an email from Jesse Eastman.
Subject line: Tiffin.
This is it, she thinks. He’s found out about the money. She’s going to be fired.
The irony is that Audre has had a good week. The operating account’s value rose by seventy-five grand, and although that’s only 1 percent of what she needs to earn back, she’s taking it as a win.
She can’t bear to open the email so late in the day with First Dance looming… but neither can she let it haunt her weekend.
She clicks.
Good evening, Audre.
I’m writing to let you know that I will be circulating off the board of directors at the end of this school year.
With East graduating, it only makes sense for me to shift my attention and resources to his next endeavor.
The good news is that there are plenty of capable people to take my place.
May I suggest Kathy Wilson or Ari Levy as the next president?
This isn’t the time for reflections and farewells; I just wanted to let you know my intent so you could prepare. I’m at your disposal until the end of the school year and I’ll assume our agreement in regard to my son will continue.
Thank you and all best, J.E.
Audre gasps, which would normally bring Cordelia running—but Cordelia is at home getting ready for the night ahead. Which is what Audre should be doing! Why, oh why, did Audre feel the need to refresh her inbox so late in the day, and before the evening of First Dance?
She has so many emotions. The first is shock: Jesse loves Tiffin, he lives for Tiffin.
He has donated more than twenty million dollars: He renovated the Manse and upcycled the Teddy, he created and funded the entire capital campaign, he brought the school Chef Haz.
But who is Audre kidding? Jesse donated the money only because it kept East enrolled at Tiffin no matter what.
East could break the rules (vaping, keeping a truck in the Back Lot, building a speakeasy under the dorms) without repercussions.
But East would be graduating, and Jesse apparently wouldn’t stay on Tiffin’s board just for Tiffin’s sake.
Certain things now make sense. This is why Jesse sent the desultory thumbs-up to her text about the rankings. He didn’t care!
Audre also feels a tentative… relief? If Jesse is leaving, he might be more forgiving when he finds out about the operating account dumpster fire.
Is this possible? Audre isn’t na?ve enough to believe she’ll be let off the hook, but since Jesse is leaving, he’ll be less likely to micromanage. There will be less scrutiny.
Or will there be more scrutiny?
There’s also the bald fact that with Jesse goes Jesse’s checkbook.
Audre had hoped to renovate the dorms in the next year or two; they badly need it.
Who in the world will step up to fund that kind of project?
There’s nobody else in the current Tiffin community who has pockets as deep as Jesse Eastman’s.
Audre closes out her email and checks in with herself: Her anxiety level has somehow managed to rise. She didn’t think it possible.