They Wish They Were Us(69)

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I don’t want you to feel sorry for me,” he barks. “But I don’t want to spend senior year thinking about the past. It was bad enough the first time. It’s just . . . exhausting. I have to think about the future.”

“Now who’s self-centered?” I say, hoping it sounds as jokey as I mean it to.

Quentin smirks and turns the radio to the eighties station he knows I love. “Alone” by Heart floats through the speaker and I let out a laugh. It’s so on the nose.

“I’m on scholarship,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud to anyone. A piercing shame burrows deep in my stomach, not for being on scholarship but for feeling the need to hide it.

Quentin sits up straighter. “Really?”

I nod. “Merit-based. For STEM. I have to keep a 93 average.”

“I got the visual arts grant,” he says with a smile. “Full ride since middle school.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to pay for Brown, either,” I say softly. “There’s a test and if I come out on top, I’ll get tuition covered. That’s what I’ve been doing at lunch without the Players’ Table. Studying. But I don’t know how I can ace it. Not without help.”

“You think you need the stupid Files?” Quentin laughs. “You’re Jill Newman. You were born to be in that program. You just have to show them.” He stops at the red light and turns to face me. “Do the work, Jill. Earn it.”

Looking at his sloping splash of red hair and his perfect freckled complexion, my heart breaks for Quentin’s kindness and tears prick my eyes. I want more than anything to give him a hug. To rest my head on his doughy shoulder and curl up for a Real Housewives marathon. I want to tell him that it’s easier to worry about Shaila than to worry about the future and how we were going to live up to everyone’s expectations. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend like life ends after high school. Wouldn’t that make this all worth it?

Then I remember what I came here to ask him.

“I just want to know one thing,” I say. “Do you remember freshman year, there was that rumor going around that a teacher slept with a student?”

“Oh my God, yeah.”

“It was about Beaumont, right?”

“Yep,” he says without skipping a beat. “I was volunteering in the admin department that year. Once I overheard the secretary, Mrs. Oerman, take a call from a pissed-off parent. Someone who said their kid was talking about how Beau was with a student. Mrs. O. was so freaked out she couldn’t stop babbling about it all day. She definitely told Weingarten. She had to. I mean, someone claimed there was abuse going on at Prep. That’s no joke.”

“Did he ever look into it?”

Quentin shakes his head. “Nah. You know our dear headmaster. Always pretending like everything’s fine. He didn’t want to deal with any drama, make a scene, find out something he’d rather not know.”

Quentin’s right. That’s just another gross fact about Prep. Always sticking to the status quo. It’s the same mentality that results in so few people of color getting accepted every year. The administration doesn’t like to discuss it, but the swath of sameness is there, glaring and obvious. Sure, there are diversity initiatives, outreach programs, but as Nikki said once, “Those are clearly just for show.” If Weingarten wanted more perspectives in our classrooms, wouldn’t he have them? Hire more teachers of color, too? Just another reason I can’t wait to get out of this place.

My heart pounds in an electric thump that I can feel in the tips of my toes. I suddenly remember the gas station. The wink Shaila gave Beaumont. How he watched Shaila ride away with a case of beer on her handlebars. A smile danced on his face. Were they speaking their own secret language?

“You okay?” Quentin asks. “You look like shit. No offense.”

“Mm-hm,” I say. I want to say so much to him, to tell him about Kara and the letter and the earrings. But instead I just ask, “Are we okay?” Quentin glances my way and the corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. He places his hand in the console between us, palm side up. I grasp it and squeeze, holding on for dear life.



* * *



—

When I call Rachel, she’s breathless with excitement.

“What did you find out?” she asks.

“Well, nothing,” I say. “I have no proof.”

“But you have a hunch?”

“Remember that rumor that was going around? About Beaumont hooking up with a student?” My stomach turns even saying the words out loud. I try not to picture them behind the theater.

Rachel goes silent like she’s trying to think, to recall the before. When she speaks she sounds frantic, like she’s desperate and exhausted. “Well, shit.” She pauses. “I’m actually on my way out to Long Island to give the letter to the lawyers. Can you meet me there? They need to hear how we got it.”

“I—”

“Look, it’s not breaking and entering if you had a key, okay?” Rachel doesn’t wait for me to respond. Instead, she rattles off an address and a time but my brain spins. It’s all happening so fast. Is it really possible Mr. Beaumont hurt Shaila? That he killed her and blamed it on Graham?