The Other Girl: A Midvale Academy Novel (12 page)

The good news was that Nicholas had gone home, showered, and marched straight over to Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan’s office, where he had demanded to be on ATAT.

The other good news was that I wasn’t really worried about Pilar and Gid’s “date,” if it even was one. I wasn’t afraid that Gid was going to get some. It was obvious Pilar was just doing her suede mousie thing with him.

Gid would probably fuck it up himself.

But just in case he didn’t, there had to be something I could do.

Meanwhile, we had our first ATAT practice. It was in a little room off the dining hall, a depressing, forgotten corner with vinyl paneling and old travel posters from the Italian Alps.

I had not planned on being in this room ever, for anything,
but I was going to be here every night for almost the rest of this year now.

ATAT practice worked like this: Everyone was assigned a partner and had a subject, like Kings, or Cooking Terms, or Inventors. You quizzed each other for twenty minutes, and then switched partners and subjects.

Nicholas and I had Classic Rock Quotes.

“Two lost souls…,” Nicholas began.

“Pink Floyd, duh,” I said.

Nicholas pursed his lips and tapped his black Earth shoe against the floor. “Christ on the cross,” he said.

We looked around the room. Devon and Edie were doing the Civil War. Dan Dooras and Mickey were next to us, quizzing each other on African capitals. They were taking a break and Dan approached us, his gaping fish mouth open. “Uh…I might as well explain this to both of you,” he said, “while you’re taking a break…”

“Ah, yes, but we’re not taking a break.” I could tell Nicholas was totally irritated at some guy who was a complete social pariah suggesting that he knew what Nicholas was or wasn’t doing.

“Dust in the wind. Everything is dust in the wind.”

Nicholas gave me a
duh
look.

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Kansas!” he said. “I mean, did your parents not just play that album all the time? Shit. Mine did. It was how I knew they were getting divorced.”

Dan opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again and said, “My parents only listened to Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. We didn’t have any conception that there was another
band in the world besides the Eagles though, so we just called Fleetwood Mac the Lady Eagles.”

“Weren’t you supposed to tell us something?” Nicholas said.

“Oh, yeah.” Dan patted his flat brown hair. “I used to be Dan D,” he said. “But Dan Renton, Dan R, graduated. So now I am just Dan.”

Nicholas gave me an elaborate eye roll to show me how much he was being tortured. Dan blinked. “OK,” Nicholas said. “Thanks.”

By the end of the practice it was pretty clear who was good at what: Nicholas knew history, I knew books, Edie knew both those things too but not as well as we did but she was a lot better at math, which was good because there was a three-person math challenge in every match. Dan knew a lot of obscure stuff, especially about sports and inventions. For example, he knew who Robert Fulton was, and afterward, during a break, I overheard him telling Mickey more about Robert Fulton, until Mickey finally said, “OK, Robert Fulton, American Treasure. I get it, dude.”

Edie and I were together for the last round, and we had Fashion Terms.

“A framework to expand the fullness or support the drapery of a woman’s dress,” I said.

“Bustle,” Edie answered quickly.

“A narrow neckband with wide, pointed wings,” I said.

“Shit. Fuck. I don’t know whether it’s an ascot or a cravat.”

I smiled enigmatically.

“Shit. Cravat.”

“An excellent guess,” I said, “but the cravat has a bow. All right. When folded in a decorative way and used to ornament a suit, a brightly patterned handkerchief may be called a…?”

Edie wrinkled up her face in scorn. “Duh, pocket square,” she said. “Those are so gay.”

I gasped. I had my solution.

“Molly?” Edie said.

But I was already up and gunning for Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan, who was sitting in a threadbare chintz chair in the corner of the room, correcting papers. “I have to leave early,” I said. She didn’t look up at first. She was writing a comment in caps, with her red pen: YES, BUT WHY?

She gave me a withering smile. “Molly,” she said quietly, “you’re the captain. It’s a bad example if you leave early.”

I nodded. “I know that. And I want you to know I wouldn’t be leaving unless it were really important.”

“Did someone die?” she asked, adjusting her glasses impatiently in a way that suggested she knew no one had died.

“No,” I said. I looked up at the clock. It was ten of five. I didn’t have a lot of time. “No one died.”

She looked back at her papers. “I hope whatever you’re doing is worthy of my letting you go,” she said. “If it contributes to your peace of mind, perhaps it is a worthy intrusion on our practice.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Really, seriously, thanks.”

She didn’t look up and her expression didn’t change at all. She wrote again in the margin: SHALLOW ARGUMENT.

Midvale wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, but it did have a tiny old-fashioned department store called Maury’s, right next to the train station. It was wood-paneled and smelled of dry cleaning, the rubber soles on cheap sneakers and, inexplicably, candy. Maury was a wiry old man in a bow tie, reading the
Arts and Culture section of
The Globe,
and he looked absolutely astonished to find me standing there.

“Young lady,” he said. “How can I help you?”

I told him I needed pocket squares.

He got a faraway look in his rheumy eyes. “Pocket squares. Very popular with young men in the eighties. Meant, I think, to evoke a sort of aristocratic British club atmosphere, but screamingly middle-class.”

I nodded and said, “Exactly.”

He stood there and looked at me. “All right,” he said.

“All right what?” I replied.

“I’m going to go in the back and look for them.” He didn’t move. Then he inhaled deeply through his nose, came out from behind the counter, and exhaled. He walked to the back, his black shoes heavy on the brown linoleum floor.

He came out a few minutes later with one draped over each hand. “Red or paisley?”

The paisley had a lavender background with yellow, red, and white accents.

“Oh, paisley,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “It is the more distasteful.” He shook his head and smiled. “It is amazing, isn’t it, how a person can just ruin their appearance with just one unsightly accessory!”

I nodded. “Amazing, and fortunate.”

He briefly explained how to sew the pocket square into a jacket. He then wrapped it in a layer of yellow tissue. I tucked it into my coat and smiled at him. “I’m going to do something sneaky with this,” I said.

He had twinkling, co-conspirator’s eyes. “Something so hideous can only be used for revenge.”

I asked him if he was Maury, and he gave a wry little laugh. “Certainly not. Maury has no idea about these things.”

The boys had always kept a spare key in the well of the fire extinguisher in the hallway, and it was still there when I went looking for it. I just walked into Gideon’s dorm in broad daylight, like I belonged there.

Being in his room made me feel sick. Made my heart beat and my stomach fill with acid. But I didn’t have time to think about how I felt. I had a job to do. Gid was going to look like a serious loser, and he wasn’t even going to know it.

There were two closets, a big one and a little one, and the little one was Gid’s.

You would think—I thought to myself, as, per the instructions of my friendly clerk from Maury’s, I sewed the pocket square into the lining of Gideon’s jacket—that a guy would notice if he suddenly had a pocket square on his jacket where there had before been none. But if I knew Gideon like I thought he did, he was going to throw this thing on at the last minute and not even look in the mirror.

I hung Gid’s jacket back exactly as I had found it, with the hanger going the wrong way. I was about to leave when I thought I might take one other precaution. I hid Nicholas’s and Cullen’s jackets so Gideon wouldn’t be tempted to wear them. I flipped through their clothes, moving some to the back of the closet. My foot hit something, and I looked down.

The whole back of the closet was lined with seedling trays.

They were growing pot again. Even though they’d gotten busted with it before. What a bunch of stupid assholes.

I wanted to throw the plants out. I was worried for Gid. But then I reminded myself he just wasn’t my problem.

Well, as long as he didn’t hook up with Pilar he wasn’t.

Pilar stood near the black iron Midvale gates. A quick thunderstorm had come and gone in twenty minutes, leaving the pavement dark, the grass and leaves greener, and the air cool and fresh. She’d made her way around the track again several times and done three different Pilates DVDs. She’d selected her dress carefully—a lavender bias-cut silk dress with red polka dots, and the cream-colored T-straps she got at Neiman Marcus last year. She’d watched her Mala Rodríguez video and felt thin.

As Gid approached she tried to sell herself on his cuteness. He had just shaved, and he was getting more and more to shave. His hair was the right amount of neat and tousled. He broke into a smile, and Pilar noticed the charming, extremely slight protrusion of his left incisor.

Then she saw the pocket square. She didn’t even really know what it was. She just knew that Gid looked really fucking
gay. As he got closer, she could see tiny stiff black threads along the visible seams. It was cheap. It was
polyester
.

Gid’s face clouded. “Are you all right?”

A Town Car slowly circled one end of the quad, and Pilar flagged it. “I’m fine.”
If I mention it, it will just be worse.

They got into the car and she sat far away from him. “So, the Fairmont,” Gid said, slapping his knees in happy anticipation. “It sounds pretty cool.”

Pilar opened her window. The limo driver, who also had a pocket square, was wearing the worst cologne. She sniffed in fresh air. “It is badly in need of a renovation,” she said.

She didn’t say anything else for the rest of the trip. She just stared out the window, thinking, please don’t let my mother ask if we are dating. Every once in a while, her eyes drifted over to the pocket square, and she thought about what a mistake she’d made inviting Gid.

The Town Car pulled up to the hotel in such a way that Pilar was closest to the entrance, and she hopped out and made for the door without much regard to Gideon.

“Hello?” he said. “Remember me?” He caught up to her and put a friendly hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shake it off, but she wished he would take it away. A few seconds passed, and he did.

The inside of the hotel was red and gold and ornate, pink and green with gold accents. The drapes were gold. Old women with thin lips walked in pairs, clutching jeweled purses and, in some cases, each other. The staff wore black. They moved briskly and alone, and so smoothly that it seemed they were on wheels.

“Whoa,” Gid said. He checked out the menu for the Oak
Room. “This place is pretty rad, right? I mean, I can see why you think it’s a little gay, but I mean, a sandwich for twenty-five bucks? That’s gotta be a hell of a sandwich.”

Pilar was very nervous. More nervous than she’d ever been the whole time I’d been in her head. She turned and checked herself out in a circular mirror edged with carved gold sparrows. She sucked her stomach against her back and enjoyed the fact that she was sharing her reflection with a throng of people transfixed by the sudden and arresting arrival of such beauty, pointing bellboys, jealously glaring women at the reception desk, a concierge pretending to read a map for some guests but instead staring longingly at Pilar over the top of it.

Don’t let her bother you,
Pilar thought.
Don’t let her, don’t let her, don’t let her. Remember. You’re OK. If you weren’t, all these people wouldn’t be staring at you
.

Pilar’s mother was coming toward them, taking tiny steps in a pair of high-heeled blue shoes with rhinestone buckles. Her suit was white. Blond hair, obviously but carefully dyed, framed a still young, very beautiful face, heart-shaped like Pilar’s but paler, and with a smaller mouth. Her eyes were light and alert, and her stick-thin body seemed to vibrate with the anticipation of people saying and doing the wrong thing.

Pilar took in her thinness, staring at her mother’s hips, which were so narrow that, looking at them head-on, you got the feeling you could just pinch her with your thumb and forefinger and lift her off the ground.

She saw her mother’s eyes light on Gideon, then shift slowly downward.

If she asks him where he’s from, she’s noticed the pocket square.

“Darling.” Mrs. Benitez-Jones leaned in toward Pilar and gave her a stiff embrace. Then she backed away and took in
Gideon. “You go to Midvale as well, yes?” She smoothed her skirt as she spoke, unconsciously, repetitively, as if trying to soothe herself.

“Yes,” Gideon said. He stood up straight, as he always did when talking to adults. “I met you and your husband last fall at parents’ weekend. We were over near the front of my dorm, and—”

Her eyes quivered in their sockets. “And where are you from, Gideon?”

I knew it.

“I’m from Fairfax, Virginia.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Benitez-Jones. “Is that horse country?”

Gideon looked at Pilar.

“It’s kind of pre horse country,” Pilar said encouragingly.

“I’m sure I’ve seen a horse or two,” Gid said. “Here or there.”

There was an awkward silence.

“You always see a horse somewhere,” Gid went on. “That’s what my dad always says anyway, ‘Hey son, let’s drive around until we see a horse,’ and I say, ‘OK, Dad, let’s!’”

Mrs. Benitez-Jones, after turning away from Gideon in annoyed confusion, surveyed Pilar intently. She began at her feet, making a little hum of approval at her shoes. “Those T-straps are very slimming to your ankles.” Her eyes moved up. “The perfect length on that skirt. Things are coming out a little longer this year, and of course, that’s good for you, with your thighs.”

Gideon giggled.

Pilar braced herself as her mother continued up her body all the way up to her neck.

Hold still. It will be over soon.

“Well, Pilar,” Mrs. Benitez-Jones said, “I would advise a salad.”

With Mrs. Benitez-Jones leading the way, they moved past the gold mirrors into the Oak Room.

Whew. That could have been a lot worse.

Like how? Like if her mother brought in a scale and calipers and weighed and measured her in the lobby?

Gid tried to touch Pilar’s elbow. “Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m fine.”

But I knew how Pilar got a tight, achy feeling in the bottom of her chest when she was upset. And she was not fine. But as they approached the table and Pilar saw her father, she put on a big smile.

Pilar’s dad was like eight hundred years old, and he looked like a turtle. He barely stood up when Pilar came over to the table in the middle of the dining room. He made a noise in his throat, which I guess was sort of in Spanish. “Bleeenn,” he said, and pressed his cheek against Pilar’s. He squeezed his eyes. “
Amor,
” he said, visibly exerted.

“How are you, Daddy?” Pilar said in Spanish.

Mr. Benitez-Jones just pointed at Gideon. It was actually less like he pointed and more like his hand just drifted up in the air, as if he were a ghost.

“Alejandro!” Mrs. Benitez-Jones shouted. “This is Grayman.”

“It’s Gideon,” Pilar corrected her.

They sat down. “Well! This place has a certain passé charm,
n’est-ce pas?
” Mrs. Benitez-Jones said. “Where do your parents stay when they come up to visit?”

Gid laughed. “Uh, sometimes my dad stays at the Super 8. But not the one in Natick. That’s a shithole. The one in Weymouth is gorgeous!”

Pilar pressed her flattering T-strap against Gid’s foot, and
he leaned toward her. “My mother doesn’t understand the sarcasm,” she muttered.

“I can see that,” Gid said. “I was just trying to give her a little crash course. I think she’s enjoying it, don’t you?”

Mrs. Benitez-Jones did not seem to be enjoying herself at all. She tapped a pink nail on the table, and her paper-thin nostrils flared.

I don’t know why boys don’t know how stupeed they are when they do the exact thing you’re complaining about.

I agreed with Pilar on this. I was also pleased to notice that, although my pocket square had had its desired effect, Gid’s own cluelessness wasn’t exactly working in his favor either.

At least he ees a distraction. That’s all I expected.

Preceded by the overpowering scent of cologne, a waiter materialized between Mr. and Mrs. Benitez-Jones. He was short with gelled spikes in his hair and looked like a gay porcupine. “Have you dined with us before?” he asked.

“What kind of a ridiculous question is that?” Mrs. Benitez-Jones asked.

The waiter turned pale. “All right then. May I get you a drink?”

Mr. Benitez-Jones raised his ghost arm and groaned.

“One for me as well,” Mrs. Benitez-Jones said. “See that it’s here before I return from the women’s lounge.” She put three syllables into the word
lounge
. Then she gave them all a dark look before she spun around and stalked off.

The waiter stepped around the table toward Gid and Pilar. “I didn’t get that,” he said apologetically.

“They want gin on the rocks,” Pilar said. “Make them doubles, but use the small glasses.”

The waiter left. Gid watched him. Then he stood up and ran after him.

I shouldn’t have brought Gideon. He ees out of his element. I can’t really blame him. I mean, eef I went to a pancake breakfast in Fairfax, I would hardly know what to do, other than to not eat pancakes
. Pilar turned to her father, forcing a smile. “How are you, Daddy?” she said.

With a gnarled hand, he shifted his cane from one side of his chair to the other. “Pilar,” he said.
“Al final, estoy feliz!”

I wonder eef he means he is happy to finally see me or to finally have pretty much checked out of life.

Gid came back, rubbing his hands together. “I just got us drinks,” he whispered to Pilar.

Pilar’s mother was coming back from the bathroom. She eased herself into her chair and spread her napkin on her lap.

The waiter came, bearing four drinks. He set down Mrs. Benitez-Jones’s drink first, and, with her first indelicate act of the day, she set it to her lips and slurped. Mr. Benitez-Jones took some time getting his drink to his mouth, and when it did arrive, it seemed he was unclear as to whether he should tip his head back or tilt his hand up. He did both, and in an instant, drained the glass. “Keep ’em coming,” Mrs. Benitez-Jones said. “I’ll order for us. My daughter and I will have the endive salad, dressing on the side. Her friend and my husband will have the steak.”

“Very well,” said the waiter. In front of Pilar and Gideon he set down two large glasses that looked like Coke. Pilar took a sip and was relieved to find it tasted strongly of liquor.

“Delicious,” she whispered.

“I hope that’s Diet,” her mother said.

“Oh, it is,” Gid said. He smiled at her. Pilar tasted it again.
Gid wasn’t kidding. She was touched that Gid had known to get her Diet. Most guys wouldn’t have remembered.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re really sweet.”
I shouldn’t be so hard on heem about the pocket square. He’s sweet. What would eet be like to be with someone so sweet?

I hated, hated, hated that Gid had remembered to get her Diet. It was such a boyfriendy gesture.

Mrs. Benitez-Jones didn’t seem any more thrilled with the idea of Gid’s being her daughter’s boyfriend than I was. She drank her gin like she was Lance Armstrong and it was steroids. Then sat back in her chair and with her straw poked angrily at the ice cubes. She took a sip and cocked her head to one side.

“So, when do you start your job with the movie studio?”

Pilar shook her head. “I don’t,” she said.
Here we go.

Mrs. Benitez-Jones shuddered. “What? I don’t understand.”

“It’s just that…” Pilar gave Gideon a pleading look. “Madison got it.”

Mrs. Benitez-Jones held onto the table and inhaled for about forty seconds.

“It’s all right,” Pilar said quickly. “I mean, I…”

Her mother finally exhaled and folded her hands in front of her. “Madison? That doesn’t make any sense. She is not anywhere near as attractive as you are. How could she possibly have…have taken such a thing away from you?”

“Well,” Pilar said carefully. She looked at Gid, who had put his Coke to his mouth and was drinking as fast as he could. “I…I think actually I tried a leetle too hard.”

Gid burst out laughing and spit a little of his Coke onto the tablecloth.

“Whoo,” he said. “Sorry!”

The waiter appeared with a sponge. He dabbed at the
spot. “How is your Coca-Cola, sir?” he said, giving Gid a sly look.

“Absolutely amazing,” Gid said.

“Why were you just laughing?” Pilar demanded.
Madison probably told him all about that night. How embarrassing.

“I don’t know,” Gid said. “I guess it’s just cute, the idea of you trying too hard. I just got an image of that, and it seemed funny.”

That’s cute. Oh. Wow. I think that’s really cute.

Oh, great.

But Mrs. Benitez-Jones didn’t think it was funny at all. “Whatever does that mean, Pilar? Trying too hard…I just can’t believe that Madison, of all people—”

“Excuse me,” Gideon said. “I feel I have to interject. Madison can be horrible, but she’s not entirely without…well…It’s not like Pilar did anything wrong.”

Mrs. Benitez-Jones held up her glass and tapped on it with one finger. “Well, yes,” she said. “You may well think that, but I think it’s up to me to say whether she did something wrong or not.”

“But you weren’t there,” Gid countered.

All I could think about was how he’d used the word
interject
in front of Mrs. Benitez-Jones, and he’d never even met my parents.

“Gideon,” Pilar said, “please just let’s talk about something else.”

“I’m just saying that these things are competitive,” Gid said. He finished his drink, and as the waiter brought over another for Mrs. Benitez-Jones, he gestured that he too would like another, and the waiter nodded.

Mrs. Benitez-Jones once again went at her drink with gusto. No one said anything for a moment.

Good. That’s over. It was sort of cute for Gid to stand up for me. But that better be eet. He doesn’t know how my mother can get.