The Carlyles (5 page)

All’s Fair in Love and War

Owen slouched down at his desk in Ms. Kendall’s small, blue-carpeted art history classroom at St. Jude’s School for Boys. It was his last class before lunch, and he couldn’t wait to bolt out the door and undo the tight top button on his pressed white dress shirt. He squirmed in the worn wooden chair, his overly starched khakis rubbing against the backs of his knees.

“Has anyone felt like that?” Ms. Kendall, their young, disappointingly mousy art history teacher looked rapturously at a slide of Caravaggio’s
Conversion of Saint Paul
.

Owen studied the painting and imagined explaining it to Kat. He’d had a dream about her again last night, and now he couldn’t get her off his mind. He examined the picture again, looking at how the light was streaming in the window and onto Saint Paul. That was how it had felt. One moment he had been just himself, and then he had seen her and . . . God, he was horny.

“Mr. Carlyle, would you like to come to the front of the room and explain some of Caravaggio’s most prominent techniques?”

“I think Duke’s got it,” Owen mumbled as he glanced over at super-scrawny Duke Randall, whose hand was wildly waving in the air. Already he’d heard that most guys had crushes on Ms. Kendall. There was even a rumor that she would invite her favorites back to her office for some “extra studying.” He couldn’t believe these guys were so desperate they were fantasizing about their teachers. She had about six coarse black hairs sticking out of a pear-shaped mole on her chin.

Hot.

As all five feet, five inches of Duke walked up to the large white screen at the front of the room, the bell rang, signaling the end of class.

“Okay, gentlemen. Remember, in art, as in life, it’s all about desire!” Mrs. Kendall clapped her hands and blushed furiously.

Rhys paused beside Owen’s desk as he was packing up. “How ’bout we get some grub?” he asked companionably.

“Sure,” Owen answered as they walked out of the classroom together. The hallway was packed with guys in identical blue, gold-buttoned blazers.

“Okay, I’m going to head down to my locker. Back in a sec.” Rhys turned right and headed toward his locker. Owen continued down the hall and glanced at the two short guys on either side of his own freshly painted gray locker. They looked like they were headed to meetings on Wall Street rather than calculus class. His cell beeped and he slid it out of his pocket, hoping that Kat could have somehow found his number.

How about his name?

WORST DAY OF MY LIFE,
the text from Avery read. He grinned at his sister’s propensity to exaggerate. She’d probably found out there were no hair dryers in the locker room or something. He leaned against the cool metal of the locker and glanced down the hallway. His eyes landed on a pair of legs. Girl’s legs. He traced their familiar bend, up past a freckled thigh, over a plaid pleated knee-length skirt and white starched oxford shirt. And then he saw her.

Kat.

The illusion walked closer to him and Owen yelled out, despite himself, “Kat!”

She looked over in confusion and then broke out into a sunny smile. Her caramel-streaked hair was effortlessly shiny, her blue eyes animated and bright. Even in the drab fluorescent lighting of the school hallway she looked radiant.

“Rhys!” she squealed. Owen whirled around. Rhys was just turning the corner behind him.

“Hey!” Rhys pulled Kat into a hug while Owen looked on, feeling like he was witnessing a car crash. “Owen, this is my girlfriend, Kelsey,” Rhys said, resting his arm on her slender shoulder. Owen stared at the girl. It was Kat.
His
Kat.

Or, uh,
Kelsey.

Rhys looked back and forth between Owen and Kelsey. Kelsey looked like she’d seen a ghost.

The ghost of summer’s past?

“Do you guys know each other?” he asked.

“I don’t know him.” Kelsey stepped away from Rhys as if she had been slapped. “I wanted to surprise you and he pointed me to your locker. What was your name again?” She looked at the linoleum in front of Owen.

“Owen,” Owen choked out. He felt like he was trying to talk under water. What the fuck was going on?

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kat said to his feet.

Owen knew he couldn’t look at her. He didn’t want to see her silvery-blue eyes looking at Rhys the way she’d looked at him that night on the beach. Had she been lying when she said it was her first time?

“So, I guess Kat and I are just going to hang out during lunch. Sorry to bail on you,” Rhys said, completely oblivious to the fact that both Owen and Kat were staring at the same spot on the ground. Rhys pulled Kelsey’s hand up to his lips and kissed it, as if he wanted everyone to see how in love he was. Owen had already gotten the picture.

“Hey, can we get out of here?” Kelsey whispered urgently. Rhys could feel her hot breath in his ear. It reminded him of last night, and he found himself getting a little excited, even though it was only twelve thirty and they were in the austere, gray-lockered hallways of St. Jude’s.

“Sure,” he replied eagerly, then noticed how pale her face was. “Are you okay?” He reached out and touched her forehead in concern. Maybe she was getting sick.

“Yeah.” Kelsey shrugged her shoulders, and her heart-shaped mouth curved into a smile. “Just, you know, first-day-of-school jitters.”

Or two-timing stress?

“Nice meeting you, Owen,” Kelsey said purposefully, not making eye contact.

“You too,” he muttered, shuffling down the hall and resisting the urge to kick something.

Rhys and Kelsey walked down the concrete steps of St. Jude’s and turned toward East End Avenue. Without asking, he stopped by the vendor on the corner and bought them each a cup of coffee, black for him and two Splendas with 1 percent milk for her, from a metal cart on the corner. Rhys always felt a little manly when he could take care of her, even in little ways.

What more could you want in a guy?

Wordlessly they walked to a wooden bench in Carl Schurz Park and sat down, facing the East River. The park was empty except for one elderly lady shuffling along the promenade with her red sweater–clad Yorkie and a few Rollerbladers noisily skating back and forth. Normally, the river looked totally gross, and you really could imagine bodies floating downstream. But with Kelsey by his side, it was almost romantic. Rhys sighed in contentment as he draped his arm around her slim shoulders. He wondered if he could reserve a suite at the Mandarin for after school on such short notice.

“I was thinking about yesterday,” he began. “I was thinking—”

“I was thinking too,” Kelsey interrupted. The steam rose up from her coffee cup, and he could see red tints in her caramel hair. He couldn’t wait until later, when they would pour each other glasses of champagne and toast the first night of the rest of their lives. “I was thinking that I need to tell you something,” Kelsey continued.

“What is it?” Rhys asked. She sounded so serious. The Yorkie had sat down on the ground, but its oblivious owner was still shuffling along. He poked Kelsey, hoping she would laugh. She didn’t notice.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore,” Kelsey told him flatly, staring straight ahead at the river.

He furrowed his tanned forehead and brown eyebrows.

“I’ll always love you,” she continued. She put her coffee cup on the ground, balancing it awkwardly on a patch of grass.

“What happened?” Rhys demanded. His eyes were stinging, and he could feel blood rushing to his ears.

“There’s someone else,” Kelsey said in a rush of words.

“What?” Rhys dropped his coffee cup. The brown liquid formed a pool that began seeping toward her vintage black and white Prada flats. Someone else? Someone besides him?

“Oops!” Kelsey said as she pulled her feet up to her knees and laughed nervously. Rhys caught a glimpse of tan thighs under her skirt, but they weren’t his to look at anymore. They were . . . someone else’s. He couldn’t think of any words to say. A tear trickled down his face, followed by another, and he angrily brushed them away.

“If you cry, I’m going to cry,” Kelsey whimpered. “This is really hard for me, too. I didn’t want to hurt you, but then you were in Europe and I was on the Cape all summer, so . . .” She trailed off, looking at the water, and then turned to face Rhys, tears in her silvery-blue eyes. Rhys realized he had never seen her cry before. “I’ll always love you, but it would be dishonest if we stayed together.” With that, Kelsey got up and walked out of the park.

Rhys stayed put on the worn wooden slats of the bench. He looked at the ground, noticing for the first time how sparkly the pavement was if you kept staring at it. He wasn’t sure whether he was going to cry or faint. He closed his eyes and saw stars.

Good thing he’s got a new friend with broad shoulders to cry on.

If Bad Girls Have More Fun, Then Why is
B
Miserable?

Baby opened the heavy oak door to Mrs. McLean’s office, glaring at the word
HEADMISTRESS
embossed on the gold plaque that hung from it. It sounded so over the top, like Constance Billard was some sort of nineteenth-century finishing school. She slid onto one of the rigid wingback chairs in the waiting area, across from the secretary, who was pretending to be busy on the computer. She couldn’t stand the pretension that seemed to ooze out of every corner of Constance, from the French professor who looked like she had been sent from central casting to the dark-oak everything. Before they’d moved, Baby had begged her mother to be allowed to stay in Nantucket, but she’d said no. Edie had even been talking about moving permanently into their grandmother’s peach-colored town house once the lawyers were finished. Baby had never felt more desperate to be back in Nantucket and with Tom, who never demanded anything of her, who just let her
be.

“Mrs. McLean is ready for you,” the skinny, stringy-haired, middle-aged secretary nodded at the walnut door that led into the headmistress’s office.

“Thanks,” Baby said fake sweetly, standing and walking through the door.

“I’m Mrs. McLean.” The intimidatingly large headmistress stood up and squeezed out from behind her enormous mahogany desk, casting a shadow over Baby. “And you must be Baby.”

Baby nodded and flopped onto a stiff blue velvet love seat in a corner, tucking her legs underneath her. The whole room was decorated in shades of red, white, and blue. Baby wondered if maybe Mrs. McLean thought she was the president.

Mrs. McLean looked pointedly at Baby’s thin legs, motioning with her eyes for her to move them. Baby swung her feet back to the floor and sighed. For the past sixteen years, she’d only ever received praise from her teachers. She’d always gotten straight A’s in everything, without even having to try. But now, everything was just so different. Sure, she could spiritedly explain that she’d simply been demonstrating situationism—the 1960s avant-garde European movement to restore authenticity in life. Back in Nantucket, she might have even gotten extra credit for her outburst. But sitting in Mrs. McLean’s rigid office, she felt the energy drain from her body, and she didn’t at all care to explain what she was feeling.

“Madame Rogers just called down and is quite distraught by your outburst,” Mrs. McLean began, taking Baby in with her muddy brown eyes. “I think we got off on an exceptionally bad note here, didn’t we?”

Baby grimaced. She hated when teachers used the pronoun
we
when they meant to say
you,
as in,
You really fucked up, now didn’t you?

Which was exactly the point.

“Before we get to that, though, you do have an unusual name,” Mrs. McLean said, shuffling through Baby’s file. “Is there anything more appropriate you would be comfortable using?”

Baby narrowed her blue eyes. “That’s my name,” she said slowly, enunciating each word. This school was all about conformity. It was one thing to be forced to wear a uniform, but they wanted her to change her
name
?

“Okay, then. I just wanted to let you know it was an option if you wanted something more academic.” Mrs. McLean coughed, and Baby glanced at a wooden-framed photograph of a farm that stood out amid the red and blue cups of pencils. “But of course, it’s your choice. And now, on to the matter at hand. I know it’s your first day and things may be overwhelming for you and your sister. Nevertheless, we expect students to adapt to our way, the way of Constance Billard.”

Mrs. McLean smiled at Baby in an almost motherly fashion, and for a fleeting moment Baby felt a flicker of affection. Mrs. McLean looked a bit like Doreen, the lady who ran the pie shop back in Nantucket. Doreen would always give Baby a slice of rhubarb on the house when she forgot her wallet. “I know you and your sister have had a rather untraditional upbringing. Is there anything you want to tell me about?” She folded her hands expectantly, as if waiting for some tear-filled confession.

“Nope.” Baby shook her head.
Except for the fact that I hate everything about New York.

“All right, then. I’m willing to overlook this incident if you are willing to participate in a week of Constance community service. This will be after school, and it’s not a punishment. I’m going to design a schedule that will help you become familiar with Constance Billard traditions. I want you to feel like Constance is your home.”

Baby imagined herself polishing the trophy case in the lobby as girls trampled over her to get to a sample sale or to Barneys or to wherever they went after school.

“So, what do you think?” Mrs. McLean pressed. “Do your community service and give us a month of good behavior, and we’ll put this incident behind us.”

“That sounds fucking awesome.” Baby yawned. A thrilling tingle shot up her spine as Mrs. McLean’s small Raggedy Ann mouth formed an
O
of surprise.

“Excuse me?” Mrs. McLean’s tenor voice turned into a growl, but Baby didn’t stop staring straight into the headmistress’s eyes.

“Give me manual labor.” Baby yawned again. “That sounds exactly like the type of out-of-the-box thinking that makes Constance Billard
exceptional
.” She almost giggled at the last sentence. “Can I go now?” Baby asked.

“No.” Mrs. McLean pursed her lips. “I’ve seen your grades, and you’re smart, but here, that’s not enough. Last year a girl who’d succumbed to bad influence had to find a more appropriate educational situation—at
boarding school.
”

Sounds familiar.

Mrs. McLean plucked a slim blue booklet from a file cabinet and handed it to Baby.
Constance Billard Code of Conduct
was printed on its cover.

Baby stood up and smoothed out her skirt. It was so stiff it felt like it could stand up by itself.

“One last thing.” Mrs. McLean leaned back in her chair and locked eyes with Baby. “At Constance, we have a tradition of excellence, which includes a three-strikes rule—no exceptions.”

A smile played on Baby’s lips. This was going to be even easier than she’d thought. If she got kicked out of Constance, Edie would have to admit that she didn’t fit in here and would have no choice but to send her back to Nantucket. A few more days of mumbling French swears and she’d be on the ferry, the ocean breeze ruffling her hair.

“Did I say something amusing?” Mrs. McLean looked her sharply up and down.

“No.” Baby moved toward the door.

“Okay then.” Mrs. McLean didn’t look entirely convinced. “Read the booklet. And remember, Baby, this counts as your first strike.”

Baby strode out of the office smiling triumphantly. She’d never really been into baseball, but now she had a new appreciation for it.

For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game!