24. Tiffin Talks Crush
In her campaign speech, Head Prefect Madison J. promised us she would bring back a nearly forgotten Tiffin tradition called the Tuck, which is a casual party held in God’s Basement with loud music, low lighting, sodas from cans, snacks from cellophane bags, and light-to-no chaperoning.
Madison makes good on her promise and, with Ms. Robinson’s (reluctant) blessing, schedules the Tuck for the Saturday night of Valentine’s weekend. The dress code is casual but specific. Students wear white if they’re single, pink if they’re in a situationship, and red if they’re fully taken.
Madison J. throws further fuel on the fire with an Instagram post that says: Tag ur friend and their crush to ruin their life. She asks her best friend, Willow Levy, to kick off the comments. Willow says: @thedavibanerjee and #LiamDonovan.
Boring, we think. Since Pippa Sacks got kicked out, Davi and Liam have been hanging out all over the place. Sunny Wu told the girls on her floor that Liam basically lived in Davi’s room over Thanksgiving break while Pippa was home in New York.
Imogen comments: @thecassieleeee and @hakeempryceballer
Whoa! This causes some chirping. Is Cassie Lee still crushing on Hakeem?
Why would Imogen say that if it weren’t at least partially true?
This comment garners so many likes that Hakeem finds Imogen between classes and asks her to take it down.
When she refuses, Hakeem texts Madison J. and asks her to take it down.
Madison J. texts back: Are you trying to censor my post?
Please, Hakeem says. He can’t have Taylor seeing that comment.
She’s been acting weird for weeks—one minute she’s got beef with him, the next minute she falls into his arms crying.
She won’t tell him what’s up. Hakeem told Dub about it, and Dub said Taylor’s probably just anxious because it’s their last semester of school.
She wants to push Hakeem away to protect herself; she wants to pull him close because she’s going to miss him.
“But that’s just a guess, bro,” Dub says. “You know her better than I do.”
Is this true? Hakeem wonders. Because the other thing that’s happened in the past few weeks is that Taylor and Dub have started whispering when they think Hakeem isn’t watching. It’s like last year all over again, except now Hakeem knows they aren’t in love or anything.
Hakeem has vowed not to spy on Taylor’s phone, but there was a time a couple weeks earlier when Taylor opened Venmo and Hakeem saw that Taylor sent Dub twenty-two dollars for “sweatpants.”
What the hell was that about? When Hakeem asked Dub if Taylor had paid him for sweatpants, Dub looked like Hakeem was holding a rattlesnake in his hands.
“No?” Dub said.
Hakeem knew he was lying, but he couldn’t figure out why.
Did Dub buy Taylor sweatpants? She never even wore sweatpants, she wore Alo sets like everyone else.
Did Taylor buy sweatpants for Dub because Dub was out of money?
This seems more likely; Dub wears nothing but sweatpants.
That was probably it, Hakeem thinks. Dub is just embarrassed.
The comment about Cassie and Hakeem stays up.
It turns out Cassie asked Imogen to post it because Cassie wants everyone to stop speculating about her so-called threesome with Reed Wheeler and Pippa Sacks during the Haydensboro Massacre.
Cassie remembers only bits and pieces of that night.
The best way she can describe it is that her faculties had been taken hostage.
She remembers kissing Reed—and maybe also Pippa?
—but it was as though her body acted without consent from her brain and there were no thoughts of consequences.
To further distance herself from the rumors, Cassie posts @oliviah_tottie and @grady311tish.
When Olivia H-T sees this, she gasps. What the helly?
She’s been careful to keep her relationship with Grady a secret.
They don’t hang, they never Intervis. (They have hooked up a few times in God’s Basement, and Grady keeps asking if they can join the Harkness Society, but Olivia isn’t ready for that step.
She’s obsessed with Tiffin traditions; however, nothing about losing her virginity on top of a table sounds appealing.)
Then, out of the blue, a reply appears from none other than @tillybenbow_09 that says: Happy Senior Spring @oliviah_tottie, go girl, miss ya!
This is the first communication Olivia has had with Tilly since Tilly left school, and she feels a burst of joy. Tilly! She’s still among them, thanks to the wonders of social media.
Once Tilly comments, other people chime in. Go Olivia! Senior spring is .
Are these comments genuine, or is everyone clowning her? Olivia isn’t sure.
Cordelia Spooner, who uses Instagram under the cryptic name @CMS717, joins in on the fun, commenting: #MsRobinson and #DrCoopersmith.
No sooner does she post it than she wonders if Audre will be angry, though Cordelia isn’t revealing anything the kids can’t figure out for themselves.
Audre told Cordelia that she and Coop spent the entire holiday break together.
They cozied up in the Residence and in Coop’s apartment in Haydensboro.
They spent a weekend at a B Coop made coq au vin.
They’re fully together, Cordelia thinks with a touch of envy.
Cordelia misses Honey. She expected to receive a text or two over the holidays; however, none arrived.
Cordelia wondered if her silence has driven Honey away.
Or maybe Honey met somebody else. The idea has soured Cordelia on the topic of romance, and she realizes she may have posted the comment about Audre and Coop in bad faith.
She considers deleting it, but when she checks, she sees it has forty-one likes, then forty-two, so Cordelia leaves it up. She can’t help it that she enjoys being popular.
By Thursday, the Tag Your Friend’s Crush post is all anyone is talking about. (It’s February, we’re bored.) As we’re standing in line for lunch, we check our phones and see a new comment from Royce Stringfellow that says: @charlottehicksreads and #Mav.
Oof.
We know that Royce and Charley are neck and neck for valedictorian, and we suspect Royce is bitter about how Charley has been sucking up to Mav since school started. Madison J. happens to agree with Royce. She likes the comment, then grabs a bag of popcorn off the snack rack as the replies pile up.
Davi reads the incendiary (“designed to cause fires”) comment about Charley and Mav as she waits in the lunch line for her chopped salad to be ready, but she knows Charley hasn’t seen it.
Charley only checks Instagram when she needs a new book recommendation from NPR or @nytbooks; she doesn’t follow anyone at school except, out of friendship, Davi.
East won’t see it either because he’s not on social media, and neither is Liam. There’s no way Davi is going to clue them in. Why would she? They’re happy.
This term, Davi and Charley both have D-period as their free, so after lunch they stop by the mail room to pick up their packages—their outfits for the Tuck have arrived just in time—then they head to the Sink to crash on the Senior Sofa.
Davi opens her package, a red silk set from Fleur du Mal.
She’d debated wearing pink instead—were she and Liam a real couple or still just talking?
—but then Liam told her he and East were wearing matching red Balenciaga T-shirts that O’Malley had sent from the city.
Davi was secretly thrilled: She and Liam were “red-official”!
“I want to try this on right now,” Davi says. “Come with me to the bathroom.”
“I’m reading,” Charley says. She looks at Davi over Keith McNally’s I Regret Almost Everything, which is assigned for their Autobiography and Memoir class with Mr. Rivera this semester. “Also, you should probably plan on getting ready by yourself on Saturday.”
Davi double-takes. “Whyyyyy?”
“I’m going to the Clark Art Institute on Saturday afternoon, and I’m not sure what time I’ll be back.”
“Wait,” Davi says. “Who’s going?”
“Mav and me.”
“Nobody else?”
“Taylor dropped the art class for some reason,” Charley says. “Don’t make me feel weird about it.”
“If you feel weird about it, it’s not because of me.”
Charley knows Davi is right. When Mav asked at the end of Art Appreciation on Wednesday evening (they’d covered Pointillists: Seurat and Signac) if Saturday would be a good day for a trip to the Clark, Charley had wanted to say no, but she couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse.
She doesn’t play sports, she’s not in the musical, and it’s too early in the semester to claim she has to study.
She felt obligated to go: Mav had been talking about a trip to the Clark since their first college meeting.
It had to happen sooner or later, so why not on a frigid Saturday in February?
“It’s not a big deal,” Charley says. “It’s a school field trip.”
“Or a date,” Davi says. “Depending on how you look at it.”
“Can you not, please?”
“Have you told East you’re going?”
Charley sets her book on her chest. “Not yet. I will, though, obviously.”
Now is the time to tell her, Davi thinks.
“You might want to reconsider this little field trip?” she says. “There’s an Instagram post where people from school are tagging their friends’ crushes, and someone tagged you and Mav.”
Charley sits bolt upright; the book slides to the floor. “Who did that?”
“Royce.”
Charley huffs. “That’s petty vendetta shit. Nobody will take that seriously.”
The last time Davi checked, Royce’s comment had 117 likes and something like 14 replies, all of them gross and inappropriate.