27. The Devil You Know #2
“Well,” Olivia says. “There was this thing that happened last year. A bunch of kids were sneaking out on Saturday nights to drink. Davi, Charley, East, even Madison J.”
“Head Prefect Madison?”
“Yeah, and Taylor too, I think.”
“That Honor Board bitch voted me out.” Pippa throws her cigarette butt to the ground and crushes it with the heel of her motorcycle boot. Is she just going to leave it there? Apparently so—what does Pippa care about littering at Tiffin?
“I’m just not sure how to figure out where they were going,” Olivia says. “I can’t ask any of them.”
“You need to find another source,” Pippa says. “Maybe one of last year’s sixth-formers? Someone who’s no longer at the school?”
Someone who’s no longer at the school, Olivia thinks. Someone who was let go. Someone who might want to see certain Tiffin students burn as badly as Olivia does.
“I have an idea,” Olivia says.
“Of course you do, queen,” Pippa says. There’s another hug—Olivia is sure she now smells fully of cigarettes—then Pippa hops into her Land Rover and drives off.
As soon as Pippa is out of sight, Olivia bends down to pick up the cigarette butt. Then she hightails it back to the privacy of her room. She has a call to make.
Olivia H-T still has Miss Bergeron’s cell phone number from when Miss Bergeron was dorm parent the year before.
But will it work? Did Miss Bergeron, in an attempt to leave all-things-Tiffin behind, change her number? (This seems excessive, what a pain to get a whole new number.) Or did she, as a less drastic gesture, block all Tiffin-related contacts?
Olivia is about to find out.
She texts: Hey Miss Bergeron! This is Olivia from Tiffin (Room 109). I hope ur doing ok. I’d love to talk to u about something if u have a min? LMK thank u!
Olivia sends the text out into the abyss. It’s weird how nobody knows where Miss Bergeron is or what she’s doing. She left Tiffin without saying goodbyes—and now it’s like she no longer exists.
Oh, but Simone Bergeron does exist. She’s doing very well, thanks for asking. Although “well” might be overstating things a bit. She’s doing okay.
After her dismissal from Tiffin the previous May, Simone went home to Montreal to live with her parents, because what choice did she have? She told her parents that the school year had ended (they didn’t question this) but that she wouldn’t be returning to Tiffin.
Zut alors! they said. Pourquoi?
Simone initially blamed her dismissal on budget cuts but Simone’s mother, a pediatrician, had a way of easing the truth out of her like a splinter from a finger: Simone confessed that she had gotten into a compromising position with one of the older students.
It wasn’t her fault, Simone insisted. She’d been set up, and the student’s father was a powerful man, so.
Her parents welcomed her back, and she was even able to secure her former barista position.
As for her future, she decided she would apply to graduate school.
Education seemed to be off the table—she would never be able to use Tiffin as a reference—and so she would pursue a degree in psychology.
She would apply to Boston schools: BU, Northeastern, and Harvard, because why not?
By the end of June, Simone was back to her old ways. She’d work days at the café, then, with a quick change of clothes in the employee bathroom, she would set out for the bars in Old City.
One night, an Uber dropped her at home completely wasted, and she interrupted a soirée her parents were throwing. She made a very bad showing, apparently—stumbling in, knocking over a wineglass, calling the guest who helped her try to clean up une plouc.
The next morning, Simone’s father gave her an ultimatum: Rehab or move out.
Simone moved out.
Since grad school was still the plan, Simone found a studio apartment near Fenway Park and spent the summer bartending at the Cask ‘n Flagon, where beefy, intoxicated Red Sox fans overtipped her when she spoke French.
In the fall, she found a better job working as the spa receptionist at an exclusive private club in the South End.
Olivia’s text finds Simone drinking a glass of Sancerre as she lounges in the bathtub of a luxury apartment in One Dalton owned by a man named Red who’s a member of the private club.
Their relationship is under wraps because staff dating members is forbidden.
Simone doesn’t even really like Red, but she loves his apartment, his Ferrari, his house accounts at Mistral and O Ya.
When Simone reads the text, her groan bounces off the marble tiles of the bathroom.
Part of her has been dreading the moment she heard from someone at Tiffin, and part of her can’t believe it hasn’t happened sooner.
It’s both annoying and unsurprising that the person who has finally reached out is Olivia H-T.
I’d love to talk to u about something if u have a min?
Simone feels momentarily embarrassed that Olivia has caught her getting drunk in the bath, though of course Olivia has no idea that’s what’s happening. Simone has applied to grad schools; as soon as she gets in somewhere, she’ll buckle down and make something of herself.
She knows she should ignore Olivia’s text; it won’t lead anywhere good.
But Simone still smolders with resentment about all the bullshit that happened to her at Tiffin.
Andrew Eastman should have gotten kicked out, and Rhode Rivera should have been disciplined for sexual harassment right along with Vandermeid.
Honey had been allowed to resign; Simone had been unceremoniously canned.
Simone also burns with curiosity. How is everyone doing? Are East and Charley still together? Simone follows Davi on Instagram and TikTok, so she saw the reel of Chef Haz’s Balthazar pop-up. But how are Madison J., Willow, Tilly? Simone had kind of loved those girls is the thing.
Hey Olivia, she types. What’s up?
There’s no response for several minutes, and Simone feels rejected.
What the fuck? Her wine is gone, and her bath is growing cold.
Simone hauls herself up, wraps herself in a thick Turkish towel, and pads out to the sleek, spotless, hardly ever used gourmet kitchen for more wine.
Red is at a Celtics game, sitting in the owner’s box with Wyc, so Simone has the entire evening to herself.
She was planning on ordering from Sorellina and rewatching Scarface.
Which, she reminds herself, is a whole lot more appealing than texting with an insecure teenager.
But as soon as Simone refills her glass, her phone buzzes.
Do u remember how the girls on my floor were sneaking out last year? Do you know where they were going?
“Ha,” Simone says aloud to no one. She settles with her wine on the sofa in front of the huge plate-glass window with views of the Pru and thinks, Should I? Why the hell not? No one at Tiffin can hurt her now, and if Simone’s being honest, she’s been fantasizing about this kind of revenge.
But to be safe she types, Off the record?
Three dots rise, then disappear. Yes, of course.
Does Olivia know what “off the record” means? Simone doubts it. She does the unthinkable and calls Olivia. She can’t have her words saved in a text stream.
“Hello? Miss Bergeron?” Olivia sounds exactly the same, and Simone can’t help but smile.
“Olivia!” Simone says. “Hey, girl.”
“Hey?” Olivia says. “How are you? Where are you?”
Neither of these are questions Simone wants to answer. Isn’t Olivia from Boston?
“Oh, you know,” Simone says. “Living my best life.” She supposes this is partially true. She’s living a borrowed best life. “I do know where the girls were going last year. But I need to be clear, you can never tell anyone I told you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. I won’t.”
She would, Simone thinks. And she will. But Simone is drunk, naked, and forty-three floors in the air with lobster gnocchi in her near future, so what does she care?
“Andrew Eastman built a speakeasy in a tunnel deep below the dorms,” Simone says. “That’s where the girls were going.”
Olivia drops her voice to a whisper. “A speakeasy?”
“Yes, a secret bar. There’s a door in the corner of the basement that leads down another flight to a brick tunnel. That tunnel ends at the speakeasy.”
“Wait, I’m confused. If you knew about it, how come East didn’t get in trouble?” Olivia says.
“East? Get in trouble?” Simone laughs. “Honey, sit down. Let me tell you some things.”
The only person Olivia H-T trusts at school these days is Grady Tish. He’s obsessed with her, he thinks she’s beautiful and smart and sexy, and he can’t believe they’re having a full-on Senior Spring romance.