9. ’Bred Bulletin
Charley has low expectations for the ’Bred Bulletin this year—and is therefore shook when she enters the newspaper’s office in the Teddy on the afternoon of their first meeting and finds the room packed.
“Wait,” she says. Across the room, she catches the eye of Grady Tish, who’s the only other person remaining from last year’s staff of four. “Are you all here for school newspaper?”
When there are nods all around, Charley is even more confused.
Is she being punked? Cassie Lee, the queen bee of the fourth-form, is here, along with all of her little friends in their Guizio minis.
Why aren’t they at the Future Content Creators of America meeting?
(There is no such club at Tiffin, though there should be.)
“Newspaper is hot now,” Cassie says.
It is? Charley thinks. She’s not gullible enough to believe it’s hot because of her, though she was credited with writing an In and Out list declaring that Orgasms were In right before Family Weekend last year, which might have been misconstrued as a fierce move rather than a gross injustice inflicted on Charley by last year’s editor in chief, Ravenna Rapsicoli.
Charley is tempted to take a picture of the dozen or so people crammed into the Bulletin’s office and text it to Ravenna at NYU with the caption: Your legacy!
Charley notices that Grady Tish is in the center of Cassie and her friends, the sun to their planets, and she wonders if Grady is the reason everyone is here.
He was, after all, half of the duo that brought the school to its knees with the Zip Zap app, albeit the lesser half.
His little buddy Levi got kicked out while Grady was merely Honor Boarded.
Has this given him status? He grew a bit over the summer, got contact lenses, tamed his cowlick.
Charley is also tempted to text Ravenna a picture of Grady: Look at our butterfly!
“Can we get on with this, please?” a gravelly voice asks.
Charley does a slow take over her right shoulder, thinking, No way…
Yes way: Pippa Sacks is sitting in the corner, nearly hidden behind the open door, and as if that isn’t bad enough, Olivia H-T is beside her, legs dangling off a desk and open enough that everyone can see her underwear beneath her minidress.
Charley chooses to stare down Olivia. Better the devil you know. “I thought you did thirds hockey.”
Olivia gives Charley a chilly smile, which Charley imagines she spent all summer practicing in the mirror. “I quit.”
Next, Charley considers Pippa. Today, she’s wearing culottes.
(Davi was apoplectic about said culottes at lunch, these apparently being the same culottes Kendall Jenner was photographed in over the weekend, yada yada, who cares.) “Do you have an interest in journalism? Were you on newspaper at Briar Patch or wherever you went to school in New York?”
“Brearley,” Pippa says, running her hand through her curls. “Fuck no, but I need an afternoon activity, and apparently microdosing doesn’t count.”
Grady laughs out loud. Of course he does.
Charley scowls—there are children present!
—and says, “There isn’t room on the masthead for everyone, so some of you will have to go.
If journalism isn’t your heart’s passion, you should check out community service or strength and conditioning.
” Charley waits a moment; no one moves. She can’t believe this.
Is she going to have to cut people? If yes, she knows the first two to go.
God, it would feel so divine to say to Pippa, Looks like microdosing for you after all.
“Does anyone know how to use the layout software?” Charley asks. This used to be Levi’s job. He was a computer genius, which is how he got into so much trouble.
Two of the girls orbiting Grady raise their hands. They both look like toddlers: One of them is still in braces, the other hasn’t yet hit puberty—her chest is gymnast-flat, her face clear of blemishes.
“Name?” Charley asks the girl with braces.
“Ava,” she says. “I did layout for my middle school paper.”
Pippa snorts. “Middle school? What am I doing here?”
Charley extends a Vanna White arm toward the door. “Please, be my guest.”
Pippa bows her head, and Charley takes a breath. Who even is she right now? She calls on the gymnast. “What’s your name?”
“Ava,” she says.
Ava must be the third-form name of choice, like their grade’s Madison and Olivia.
“Ava and Ava will be in charge of layout,” Charley says. “In order for the rest of you to stay, you’ll have to pitch me an idea for a story.” She pauses. “Except you, Grady. You have seniority.”
Grady says, “I want to cover sports again.”
Charley blinks. Grady “covered” the football team last year, but he was too afraid to interview either the players or the coach. Charley won’t call him out on this in front of his admirers, though she will have a private chat with him about the importance of chasing down a source.
“Fine,” she says.
Cassie Lee raises a hand. “I want to write about fashion. Like, take pictures on my phone and ask people about their OOTDs.”
This is met with a heavy sigh from the corner.
“Great,” Charley says. “You can start by writing about whatever it was Pippa wore to First Dance.”
“Are you joking?” Olivia H-T says. “Pippa ate, and you know it.”
Charley glares at Olivia. “I’m serious when I say this isn’t an automatic join. You two can’t just show up here every afternoon and scroll your phones. I expect articles.”
“I’ll write an article about the places people hook up,” Olivia says. “I’ve heard there’s somewhere new.”
Charley gets a hot, prickly feeling and removes her cardigan, tying it around her neck, which inspires derisive snickers from the corner. Okay, Muffy. Charley really fucking hopes Olivia hasn’t discovered Charley and East’s new spot.
Charley, East, and Davi left First Dance shortly after Pippa’s dramatic entrance; Davi was upset and wanted to go back to the dorms. Liam, who had been dancing with Davi all night, dropped her the second Pippa arrived.
Charley anticipated hanging out in Davi’s room while she vented, but when they reached Classic South, Davi said, “I think I want to be alone. I’ll see you guys tomorrow. ”
“Are you sure?” Charley said.
Yes, yes, Davi was sure. She’d meet them at the Paddock at noon for eggs Benny, she was fine, she was going to FaceTime Paolo in Italy.
Charley hesitated. It was something like four in the morning in Italy…
but maybe Paolo got up early for his orchard job?
Charley hoped this was the case and not a cover story while Davi did something stupid like finish the bottle of vodka in her fridge—or purge her stomach of Chef’s empanadas and churros.
Charley told herself she was being dramatic. It was the second week of school, Davi barely knew Liam, she was just chafed she’d lost out to Pippa. She would get revenge down the road, of this Charley was certain.
Once Davi disappeared inside, East said, “There’s still forty minutes before dorm checks. Come on.”
“Come on where?” Charley said. Last year, she’d been new and na?ve—and dazzled by East’s attention, so much so that she blindly followed him deep below the dorms.
Now, however, she was a year older—and wiser, she hoped.
East gave her his look. “Charles,” he said. “Trust me, it’ll be fine.”
Fine for him, Charley thought. East was untouchable. When Ms. Robinson found out about East’s speakeasy, Priorities, she confronted East but didn’t punish him. Instead, she thanked him for giving her a space to host donor events!
Charley wasn’t bulletproof that way: She could—and would—get in trouble. She was a senior, applying to college, and and and none of this mattered… she couldn’t say no to East.
When East headed for the chapel, Charley felt a stab of disappointment. God’s Basement? It was a Tiffin tradition to hook up there, but it felt unoriginal, second-tier.
East pulled open the heavy oak doors and ushered Charley into the vestibule, where she inhaled the distinctive church smell of candle wax and holiness.
The sanctuary was dark except for a dimmed light over the altar.
Were they going to hook up in a pew? Was that a thing?
Would Charley use one of the needlepointed kneelers as a pillow?
East pulled keys out of his pocket—more secret keys!
—and opened an unmarked door at the end of a short hallway that ran between the men’s and women’s bathrooms. Charley had never used the chapel bathroom before and hence had never noticed this hallway or the door, which, when opened, revealed a wrought-iron staircase.
Up they went with East using his phone’s flashlight.
Up and up. Charley was out of breath after two flights, but East kept going until finally, when Charley was really and truly sucking wind, they came to a metal door.
Once again, East brandished the keys and, fitting one in the lock, heaved all his weight against the door, which opened with a metallic shriek that gave Charley goose bumps.
There was a slight step up—East offered Charley his hand—and then they were both outside on the roof of the chapel with campus spread out beneath them like their own personal kingdom.
They had sex standing up, Charley facing campus with her head between one of the gaps in the crenellated wall, and East behind her.
She liked the sensation of being outside—and the juxtaposition of being six stories up rather than buried deep beneath the ground wasn’t lost on her.
East was a considerate lover, he reached around and touched Charley in just the right place with just the right pressure and speed.
With his warm mouth on her neck and strains of “Doses and Mimosas” coming from the Teddy, Charley finished, and a moment later, so did East. As he shuddered against her, saying, “God, I love you, Charles,” Charley looked up into the starry sky.
It felt as close to heaven as she could ever hope to get.
Charley realizes she’s been staring with her mouth open at Olivia.
There’s no way Olivia knows about the chapel roof. East and Charley hurried down the stairs and back to their respective dorm rooms before the bells chimed eleven and everyone spilled out of the Teddy.
“I’m not sure that topic is appropriate.” Charley thinks but does not say: What do you even know about hooking up at Tiffin?
“Fine,” Olivia says. “I’ll do the In and Out list.” She gives Charley a barbed look. “You’re certainly not going to do it.”
Charley eyes Pippa. “What about you?” she says. “Article?”
Pippa says, “What about a Beginner’s Guide to Tiffin?”
Shit, Charley thinks. That idea is good, too good for the likes of Pippa. She turns to the room. “Who’s in the fourth-form?”
A bunch of hands go up. Charley picks a girl with Dutch braids sitting next to Cassie Lee, probably Cassie’s first lieutenant.
“What’s your name?” Charley asks.
“Imogen.”
“Imogen, you’ll write the Beginner’s Guide to Tiffin.”
“You’re stealing my idea?” Pippa says.
“It’s a good idea,” Charley concedes. “But it should be written by someone who lives on campus.” Sorry, not sorry! she thinks.
The only boy in the room aside from Grady raises his hand. “My name is Tyrell,” he says. “What if we interviewed the teachers?”
“That feels a little broad,” Charley says. Tyrell’s face falls. “Why don’t you interview Mrs. Wully about her decision to become a dorm parent.”
“And you can interview her dog, Alistair,” Grady says.
“Sounds ruff,” Tyrell says, and the Avas laugh. Charley is losing her grip on this meeting.
“We should interview the new teachers as well,” Charley says.
“I’ll interview Mav,” Olivia H-T says.
“You’re doing the In and Out list.”
“I’ll interview Mav,” Pippa says.
Could they be more transparent? They want to suck up to Mav because he’ll be writing their college recommendations.
Charley points to Pippa. “You interview Dr. Coopersmith. I’ll interview Mav.”
“Baby, you can’t just take the best assignment for yourself,” Pippa says.
Baby, yes I can, Charley thinks. She gives the rest of the room a triumphant smile. “Thanks, everybody, I’ll get you deadlines. The paper comes out the Friday of Family Weekend.”
And with that, the first meeting of the ’Bred Bulletin is adjourned.