People Like Us(21)

“Okay . . .” She pulls up the website and types rapidly for a moment.

“Do you have the code-breaking software on your phone?”

She casts me a withering glare. “What do you think?” She types for another moment or so and then turns the screen to me.

I look down at the list of dishes. Tai Burned Chicken was the appetizer. The next item is the first course. I click on it. The name of the recipe is Pulled Parck Sandwich. Tricia’s last name is Parck.

Take a piggy plump and pink

Trim the fat; select a drink

Irish whiskey aged and iced

Serve with papers, that sounds nice

On a board with fancy trim

Skewer her for screwing him.

Nola whistles under her breath. “Your friends are deviants, Donovan.”

I read the poem several times. Tricia. Irish. Screwing. “There’s no way.”

“That Tricia’s sleeping with Hannigan? Because that is exactly what it sounds like. Irish? Aged? That piggy and plump shit is cold, but the rest is spot-on.”

I feel sick. Tricia’s extreme weight loss explains the cruel first couplet. But Nola’s right. The rest sounds like a reference to Hannigan. And there was a rumor about a student back in September when he first started. We all trashed it as fake news, though, because no one came up with an actual name.

I shove the cell phone back at her. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“You know, we might be reading into it.”

“Jessica was obviously a very messed-up person. Maybe she—”

“Had it coming?” Nola flicks her cigarette. She blows a wisp of smoke through her pale lips and then twists them into a prim smile, her blue eyes piercing. “Maybe. But you don’t want to find out any more?” She looks at the screen. “Although, I have no idea what the papers or board part means.”

I take the phone from her and tap the screen experimentally in a few places. The graphic for this recipe shows a bar napkin with a phone number scribbled on it. Tricia’s number. I tap on the number and a pdf file opens. It’s Tricia’s early-decision application to Harvard, including her recommendation letter from Hannigan. On the final page is a screenshot of the Harvard admissions board, and one of the people listed has the last name Hannigan. Attached is a jpeg file of Tricia and Hannigan together in his office, her arms wrapped around his neck, his face tilting down to kiss her.

“Well, that doesn’t look good,” Nola says. The back door of the chapel opens and I duck behind the Dumpster, but it’s only a caterer from the bakery carrying a towering stack of white pastry boxes to his van. Other than that, the small parking lot between the chapel and the trees lining the lake is completely deserted.

My head swims. “I need to talk to her.” I race back toward the front of the chapel, my heart tumbling around my chest, and burst through the doors. The air is thick with the lingering scent of incense from the service, mingling with the sweet pastry and coffee smells. My stomach churns and I try not to breathe as I march over to Brie and Tricia.

Brie scrunches up her nose. “Were you smoking?”

I shake my head vigorously. “Tricia, I need to talk to you outside.”

She follows me curiously. “What’s up?”

I wait until we’re out of earshot from the few students milling around the lawn. “I know this is intrusive, but you need to be honest with me. Are you having an affair with Hannigan?”

She doesn’t even hesitate for an instant. “No. Gross.”

“Don’t lie.”

She places a hand on my arm and laughs, the dimples in her cheeks appearing. “Oh my God, Kay. I’m not lying.”

I draw in a deep breath. “You’re always talking about how guys our age are basically preschoolers.”

She shifts her eyes to the side for just a split second. “Some of them are. Look at Spencer.”

“Trish.”

She watches the students pour out of the chapel and head past us toward the dorms. “What do you have against Hannigan all of a sudden?”

“Nothing if it isn’t true.” Now I’m running through every time I stopped by his office to go over an assignment that didn’t make sense to me. He had me read love scenes when I didn’t understand the political speeches. Maybe he just wanted me to study what he was going to test. But it creeps me out now.

“Then why are you trying to get him fired?” She glances behind her reflexively, and we watch several of the professors lingering at the chapel doorway, chatting with students. Hannigan is there with his wife, who looks remarkably like Kate Middleton. Tricia looks at me, and she seems to have shrunken.

“He sucks, Trish. It’s an absurd abuse of power to sleep with a student.”

She turns back to the chapel for a moment, and her elegant profile is striking. We’re all dressed for mourning, but only Tricia’s face reflects it. She and Tai were best friends, and I know that’s part of it. The rest is heartbreak. “It’s not like that.”

“He’s the one who’s in the wrong, one hundred percent. But please be honest with me,” I say softly.

She doesn’t respond right away. “You’re all about you.”

“Someone knows. And they’re going to go public.”

She looks at me, alarmed. “Unless?”