Nothing to See Here (4)

“It looks fun,” I said, lying.

“It can be,” she said, her pupils crazy big. “But it’s just a phase.”

School was more complicated there than in the valley, but the classes weren’t hard. I made straight As. So did Madison. I won a poetry contest when I wrote about growing up poor; Madison had told me to do it after I showed her my first poem, which was about a fucking tulip. “Use it at the right time,” she told me, by which I think she meant my bad upbringing, “and you’ll get a lot out of it.” I think I understood. I mean, here I was at Iron Mountain, thriving. I got here. Madison sometimes slept in my little bed, the two of us wrapped around each other. I had good things, and it wasn’t as hard to admit to where I’d been before I ended up right where I belonged.

And then one of Madison’s beautiful friends—the least beautiful of the six of them, if you want to be cruel—got upset at a joke that Madison had made, a moment when Madison’s weirdness had spilled out beyond the confines of our dorm room, and so the girl told the dorm parent that Madison had a bag of coke in her desk drawer. The dorm parent checked, and there it was. Iron Mountain was a place for rich people, and it depended on those rich people, so Madison hoped, in bed with me one night as we talked it over, that the school would go easy on her. But I was not rich, and what I understood was that sometimes a place like Iron Mountain made an example of one rich person in order to gain the trust of a bunch of other rich people. It was almost the end of the year, just a few weeks till final exams, and the headmaster of the school, no longer some British dude but a Southern woman named Ms. Lipton with a white shell of a hairstyle and a maroon pantsuit, called Madison and her parents to meet with her in her office, the invitation sent on official letterhead. Ms. Lipton called everyone “daughter” but had never married.

Madison’s father drove up the night before; her mother was unable to come, “so overwhelmed with disappointment,” Mr. Billings told Madison over the phone. He wanted to take us out to dinner, a kind of farewell for Madison and me, although I thought that seemed weird. He picked us up in a brand-new Jaguar. He was older than I’d expected, and he looked like Andy Griffith, with that winking way of acknowledging you. “Hello, girls,” he said, opening the door to the car. Madison just grunted and hopped in, but Mr. Billings took my hand and kissed it. “Madison has told me so much about you, Miss Lillian,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. I was still unsteady with adults. I thought maybe he wanted to sleep with me.

We drove to a steakhouse and there was a table reserved for us, though Mr. Billings said it was for four. And then I saw my mom, dressed up for her, but not dressed up enough for this place. She looked at me with this kind of what the fuck have you done look on her face, but she then quickly smiled at Mr. Billings, who introduced himself and then kissed her hand, which my mother was so jazzed about, clearly.

“A drink, ma’am?” he asked my mom, who ordered a gin and tonic. He ordered a bourbon, neat. It felt like we had instantly become a new family. I kept looking at Madison for some kind of clue as to whether she was freaked out, too, but she wouldn’t even look at me, just kept running her eyes up and down the menu.

“I’m happy you two could join Madison and myself on this night,” Mr. Billings said after we ordered. My mother had chosen a filet that was listed at twenty-five dollars, but I got chicken fettuccine, which was the cheapest thing on the menu. As much as I try to remember, I have no idea what Madison and her dad ordered.

“Thank you for inviting me,” my mom said. She had lived a hard life, smoked too much, but she had been a cheerleader and a beauty queen in high school. She was still beautiful, I had to admit, a beauty that she’d not passed on to me, and I could see how she just might, in this setting, seduce Mr. Billings for a night.

“I’m afraid the reason for our gathering is not so happy,” he said, looking at Madison, who was now staring at the tablecloth in front of her. “I’m afraid Madison has gotten herself into some trouble, because she is headstrong. I have five children, but Madison is the youngest and she is more trouble than the other four put together.”

“Four boys,” Madison said, a little flash of anger.

“Anyway, Madison has made a mistake and she is going to be punished for it. Or that seems to be what awaits us tomorrow morning. And that is why I wanted to talk to you and Lillian here.”

“Dad—” Madison began, but he froze her with a hard stare.

“Did Lillian do something wrong?” my mom asked. She already had her second gin and tonic.

“No, my dear,” Mr. Billings continued. “Lillian has been an exemplary woman while at Iron Mountain. I’m sure you’re quite proud of her.”

“I am,” my mother said, but it sounded like a question.

“Well, here’s the situation. I’m a businessman, and as such, I’m always looking at things from a different angle, seeing all the possibilities. Now, my wife refused to come here; she thinks that Madison needs to accept her punishment and aspire to do better with what’s left to her. But my wife, though I love her, hasn’t fully considered the ramifications of Madison’s expulsion. The effect it would have on her future is more than I can state.”

“Well, kids make mistakes,” my mother said. “That’s how they learn.”