8. The Spins #3
Mr. Rivera and Dr. Coopersmith are talking, meaning Mr. Rivera is talking and Dr. Coopersmith is probably bleeding from the ears.
Mr. Rivera pauses his jabbering for a brief moment to take in the spectacle of Pippa, and Davi can read the query on his face: Are we doing anything about this?
No? Okay. He turns back to Dr. Coopersmith, but Coop has wisely taken Mr. Rivera’s brief lapse of attention to escape. He’s hitting the churros station.
Davi is overcome with the same sense of indignation that older siblings must feel when the youngest gets away with everything. It’s like the adults have simply… stopped caring.
Pippa scans the Egg before striding over to Davi. No, not Davi—Liam.
Davi pulls on Liam’s arm. “Wait.”
Liam shrugs. “Sorry,” he says. “I promised her I’d hang. Because we’re both new.”
Is this real? Davi thinks. Is Pippa Sacks stealing her man?
Yes, yes she is. Pippa takes Liam’s hand, and the two of them break into the middle of the circle on the dance floor.
Which leaves Davi… dancing on her own.
Pippa’s dramatic entrance is precisely the disruption Taylor and Hakeem have been waiting for. While everyone’s attention is on Pippa, Taylor grabs the front of Hakeem’s black shirt. “Let’s go.” Hakeem is also low-key ogling Pippa in whatever the fuck she’s wearing. “Unless you want to stay?”
“Oh, hell no,” Hakeem says. He nudges open the Emergency Exit door behind them (as sixth-formers, they’ve learned that the ALARM WILL SOUND sign is there only as a deterrent), and he slips outside.
Once Taylor double-checks that nobody is watching them—literally every eyeball in the place is on Pippa—she follows.
The night air is mild and smells like cut grass.
Hakeem takes Taylor’s hand, and together they race to the dirt path behind the Teddy.
There’s no moon, and, unlike the other paths at Tiffin, the little-used one that runs along the back edge of campus bordering the woods isn’t lit.
Taylor squeezes Hakeem’s hand, willing him to slow down just a little; they can’t see what’s in front of them.
She could step in a muddy divot and break her ankle or accidentally drop-kick a skunk that’s wandered out from the woods.
Once they make it past the Sink, Taylor relaxes enough to gaze up at the night sky; the stars look like spilled sugar. They hurry by the Manse, where one upstairs window shines butter yellow—that’s Ms. Robinson’s residence, the window is probably her bedroom, but she’s at the dance.
Up ahead on their left, tucked into an alcove created by the surrounding woods, is Mrs. Spooner’s cottage, the only Tudor-style building on camp.
It has a half-timbered facade, leaded-glass windows, and a rose garden encircling its front like an apron.
It looks like the house where the Three Bears live.
Spooner, too, is at the dance.
Taylor picks up her pace. The Schoolhouse is only a few yards away, and it’s well-known that the side door can be opened with anyone’s key card.
This is happening, Taylor thinks. They are doing this—but as they approach the side door, they hear a distinct whirring noise.
A pair of headlights appears from around the corner of the building.
“Shit,” Hakeem says.
It’s Mr. James in the Gator.
Taylor’s instinct is to flee. She’s wearing black; Mr. James might not see her if she runs. But she hesitates a moment too long, and the Gator pulls up right in front of them. They’re busted.
Taylor bites down on her lower lip as tears burn her eyes.
She was so anxious about losing her virginity that she didn’t give their plan a proper vetting.
She figured once they were safely out of the Egg, they would be home free.
Everyone at Tiffin knows that Mr. James is lax about his nighttime duties; that’s how joining the Harkness Society became a thing in the first place!
Technically, Mr. James is supposed to be doing exactly what he’s doing—patrolling the school grounds—but most of the time he sits in the “security office” in the Back Lot bingeing shows on his laptop and drinking whiskey. His nickname is Mr. Jameson.
The strawberry daiquiri mocktail that Taylor drank at the dance is threatening to become a puddle of pink vomit.
If Mr. James turns them in, Taylor will lose her position as Honor Board chair, and once that happens, she can kiss admission to college goodbye.
Hakeem will get suspended from the football team, and who knows how the Dartmouth football coach will feel about that.
It’s like they’ve been told all their lives: Actions have consequences.
“Evening,” Mr. James says. He nods first at Hakeem. “Mr. Pryce.” Then at Taylor. “Miss Wilson.” He cuts the engine of the Gator. “What are you two up to?”
Hakeem and Taylor steal a glance at each other, and Mr. James wonders what story they’ll hand him.
He’s guessing Hakeem will say they were at the dance and Taylor didn’t feel well so Hakeem offered to walk her back to South.
This would be the excuse that Mr. James would use, though it doesn’t explain why they were headed for the side entrance of the Schoolhouse. There’s only one reason for that.
Michael James has spent his thirty-three years at Tiffin carefully maintaining his reputation as a curmudgeon, but recently he’s found himself mellowing.
Mr. James knew all about the speakeasy young Eastman built in the old bomb shelter beneath the dorms, and he even knew that Chef Haz was supplying the booze.
Late one night, he’d seen Chef’s truck hightailing it out of the Back Lot, and a subsequent search revealed boxes of vodka and tequila in the rock garden.
Mr. James had snatched a bottle of Bushmills for himself and let the rest be.
He could easily have blown the whistle on the whole enterprise, but he chose not to.
His lower back had started bothering him; he couldn’t have made it all the way down to the bomb shelter to confirm his suspicions even for a five-figure raise (which is what he would have asked Audre for in exchange for the intel).
He would never turn in a fellow member of the staff—he has a code about that—and certainly not Chef Haz.
The man is a wizard, and last year—maybe because he suspected Mr. James might know more than he was letting on—he started delivering to-go boxes to the security office before he left camp for the night: sausage rolls in flaky puff pastry, crab fried rice topped with crispy eggs, a wedge of coconut cake.
Mr. James’s back is only hastening the inevitable: He will soon need to retire—and for this reason, he has started considering his legacy.
Most of the kids fear him, though Mr. James hopes these students understand that beneath his gruff exterior, he cares about their well-being.
He also knows way more about the particulars of their lives than they probably realize.
Take the two in front of him. They’ve been together since third-form, although last year they split up during the Zip Zap nonsense. (The app announced that Taylor held a flame for Dub Austin, a situation that caused Tiffin to lose the final football game of the season to Old Bennington.)
By the end of the school year, the ship had righted, Hakeem and Taylor were back together.
Only a few days ago during Chapel, Dub Austin announced to the entire school that he “played for the other team,” as it were. Pete Bosworth confided to Mr. James that, since this admission, Hakeem and Dub weren’t clicking on the football field the way they usually did.
Bosworth said, “Call me crazy, but it’s almost like Hakeem doesn’t want to catch the ball because Dub touched it.”
Now, Mr. James is tempted to tell Hakeem to pull his head out of his ass. Love is love, son.
Hakeem takes a breath and says, “We were heading into the Schoolhouse, sir. For some time alone. Tonight’s the night. Or it was supposed to be, anyway.”
Mr. James nearly falls out of the Gator. In thirty-three years, he has never had a student tell him the truth.
Tonight’s the night, Mr. James thinks. They want to join the Harkness Society. Mr. James is shocked it’s taken them this long.
He nods at the Schoolhouse. “Go on, then,” he says.
“I didn’t see you.” He nearly asks Hakeem if he has protection—it is, after all, Mr. James’s job to keep these kids safe—but Hakeem is smart, headed to Dartmouth.
Mr. James and Pete Bosworth have already planned a trip to Hanover next fall to watch Hakeem play.
Hakeem and Taylor bug-eye him as though he’s speaking Greek. Then, once they realize he means it—he’s letting them go—they race for the side door.
Mr. James starts up the Gator and heads down the back path with a chuckle.
He can’t help but think of his own first time.
It was the summer of 1982, he was seventeen years old, working as a groundskeeper at the Worcester Country Club.
He went “all the way” (that’s how they phrased it in those days) with Stephanie Biddle—who managed the snack bar at the club—late one night in the First Aid shack next to the lap pool.
Thinking about Stephanie Biddle again after all these years floods Mr. James with a delicious nostalgia.
He hits the gas, and the Gator goes flying past the chapel a little faster than normal.
He wonders whatever became of sweet Stephanie Biddle.
As soon as he gets back to the security office, he thinks, he’s going to look her up on Facebook.