The Other Girl: A Midvale Academy Novel (9 page)

Pilar couldn’t help but giggle. “I don’t mind heat,” she said.

“Yeah, somehow I got that sense.”

Pilar giggled again but went to sit up.

“Hey,” Elias said, his hand stiffening over hers. “I thought we were making a deal here.”

“Oh,” Pilar said. “I…”

At this point Connie arrived with another shot. “This is for you, again,” she said to Pilar.

“Oh, my,” Pilar said. She didn’t sit up. She was still sort of bent over onto Elias’s lap. He held the shot. “May I help you?”

“OK,” Pilar said.

Madison stood up, clutching her box of Export A Ultra Lights.

“Pilar,” she said, “let’s go outside for a second.”

Madison has just got to be so jealous of me at this point. I mean, I feel bad for her. I mean, Elias just practically gave me the job.

“Open your mouth,” Elias said.

Pilar opened her mouth. She felt James’s and Terry’s attention turn back to her.
They are, like, famous. When they look at me, I feel like I am on TV.
Elias, with a half smile, took the shot and poured most of it into her mouth. When it was almost gone he coughed theatrically, jostling his hand, and the remaining drops landed on her lips.

“Like sweet summer dew,” Elias said, and Terry and James,
enraptured, nodded. Pilar licked her lips, thinking,
I want to feel like I am on TV forever.

“Pilar. We are going outside,” Madison said.

“I don’t want to,” Pilar said. “It’s cold out. Besides,” she said, “I want to get a tiny hamburger. Isn’t this the place with the tiny hamburgers?”

“I’ll give you a tiny hamburger,” Elias said.

Pilar giggled.
It ees going to be so fun working for him this summer, hanging out with his friends. Why ees Madison alone out there smoking? Shit. I should probably go talk to her.
She tried to stand up, but Elias grabbed her wrist. “Where are you going?” he said. He pulled her back down so she was sitting next to him.

“I’m just going to talk to Madison.”

“So,” he said. “Why don’t you come upstairs with me?”

“Upstairs?” Pilar said. “Why?”

“Why?” Elias said, spreading his bulk into the edges of the leather seat. “So I can see you naked, that’s why. Not that I can’t kind of see you naked already.” He reached down and touched her ankle.

Pilar stopped him. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“You don’t think so?” he repeated, angry.

Terry and James upended their drinks into their gaping mouths and made a mad dash for the bar. Elias let go of her hand. He moved forward on the sofa and, suddenly all business, gave his Prada trousers a tug at the knee. Pilar leaned toward him. “Elias?” she said.

“Mmm,” he said.

“I just think we would be weird eef we had sex and then we were working together, no?”

He laughed and poured his drink down his throat. He
pushed back his hair and rubbed his thumb and forefinger on his nose. He looked at Pilar. “You’re very pretty,” he said. “But you already know that.”

“I don’t know eef I know that,” Pilar said. “I sometimes feel…”

“I don’t see this,” Elias said. He downed the rest of his drink and gave her a look. Then he nodded. “I can’t have someone like you working for me.”

“Someone like me?” Pilar suddenly felt very dizzy. “What…what am I like?”

“Well,” Elias said. “At this point, you are either someone who wants this job, or you are someone who doesn’t.”

At first Pilar didn’t quite know what he meant. Or she knew, and she didn’t want to believe she knew. But then she looked at Elias’s face and saw his tongue suggestively wet the middle of his lip.

“I…I guess I don’t want the job,” she said.

Pilar was still asleep when my parents drove me to the train station the next morning.

“You know you don’t have to leave,” my mother said, turning around to face me in the backseat. “You could miss a day of school if you’re still not feeling up to it.”

I grabbed onto the Volvo’s sturdy rectangular headrest and pulled myself up closer to her. “I have to get back. I have a lot of studying to do.”

My father kept winking at me in the rearview mirror. He was so excited about my scholarship. I hesitated. If I didn’t get out of Pilar’s head, it was going to be very hard to study for ATAT. Impossible, maybe. I had texted Dr. Stanley Whitmeyer,
but he hadn’t answered. And truthfully, I didn’t know if I wanted to get out today anyway. Pilar hadn’t thought about Gid at all while she’d been in Los Angeles, but I wanted to see what happened when she did see him. I could get out as soon as I saw Pilar and Gid together, just to make sure there was nothing going on with them.

“The thing is,” I said. “I don’t know if Dad told you this, but I am getting this big scholarship. And it’s going to be a lot of work. So I mean…”

Seconds later I had my mother’s arms around my neck, and the Volvo headrest pressed up against my face. “Oh, my baby!” my mother said. “I’m so proud of you.”

I inhaled flame-retardant Swedish vinyl and tried to think if there was some way to downplay my achievement.

But when my mother pulled away, the tears shining in her eyes let me know there was no turning back. “I don’t even know why your father and I worry about you,” my mother said. “You always take care of everything!”

My train ride was overnight, so I got back to Midvale in the morning. It was an absolutely beautiful New England day, the air was crisp and clean, the sky a pale blue deepening under a slowly warming sun, and chickadees and robins bounced and twittered in the tree branches.

Pilar was in the business-class section of a plane bound for Boston, asleep, dreaming of Spanish singer Mala Rodríguez. She’d seen her in a magazine article before she’d drifted off. She’d stared at the photos of Mala for a long time, trying to ignore Madison, who, next to her, was sighing loudly and importantly over the script Elias Ganz had messengered to the airport gate. Pilar was dreaming that she and Mala were shopping for a present for Elias, and in the dream, Pilar was confused as to why she should get him something, but also hoping that he would really like it, and like her.

I did ATAT crap the entire time on the train. How could I not, after my mother’s tearful vote of confidence in me?

The dorm was dead quiet. People would be streaming in all day, but I was one of the first. As soon as I opened the door of my room, the smell of Gideon Rayburn hit me like a gale force wind: his soap, his detergent, the slight toasty smell of his skin.

I left the door ajar and was cranking open the windows and just about to burst into tears—just a quick, cleansing burst of tears, from which I was going to emerge strong and refreshed—when I turned around and saw that Edie had come in. She wore a yellow cashmere sweater and a jean skirt and clogs, and carried a cute orange leather pocketbook.

She didn’t look like a little girl. She looked like…well, not quite a hottie, but like the librarian who takes off her glasses to reveal her smoldering beauty. Even though she was still technically in glasses.

It took me a second longer than usual to respond because I had to think: what would I say right now if I were feeling normal? “Wow. You look…uh…pretty.”

Was she wearing eyeliner?

“Thanks,” Edie said. “Why are you opening the windows?”

It was still fairly cold outside.

“Because it smells like Gideon in here.”

Edie sniffed, and when she lifted her head, I saw that she was not only wearing eyeliner, but mascara. “You’re right,” she said.

We unpacked in silence. I noticed that she took a new pair of black high-heeled boots out of her bag. Edie was a methodical person. She never did anything without a reason.

I so wished that we were the kind of friends right now where I could just ask her.

But I didn’t want to be questioned, so I didn’t question her.

When she got to her school stuff, and she took a giant pile of papers out of her knapsack. I could tell right away it was the ATAT stuff.

“Oh my God,” I said. “That’s the same crap you brought out to the car for me. When I left. You’re doing ATAT too?”

Edie nodded. “I thought you weren’t doing it. Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan told me she didn’t think you were going to do it.”

I shook my head. “Oh no,” I said. “I’m doing it for sure. I decided it probably won’t be that bad.”

Edie nodded. I could tell she didn’t believe me. “I need the scholarship,” I said. “I mean, I really need it.”

It was nice to be able to confide something, even if it wasn’t the big thing. Edie nodded understandingly. Her father was a dentist, so she wasn’t annoyingly rich, but she didn’t need the scholarship.

“Why are you doing ATAT?” I said.

Edie got a funny look on her face. “I don’t know. I just want a challenge, I guess. Did you tell Mrs. Gywnne-Vaughan you changed your mind? She’s going to be psyched.”

I shook my head. “It’s weird that she is so into this. I mean, who cares?”

“I know,” Edie said. “She actually called me. In Seattle, over break. She told me she really wanted me to do it, and also, did I think you would. I told her I didn’t know what you were going to do, that you hadn’t mentioned it, but then I remember I’d given you that pile of stuff and I told her you took it home with you, and she was kind of psyched. It was weird how psyched she was.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Well, some people, when they get older they get obsessed with weird things. Maybe she just doesn’t have anything else to do.”

“Yeah,” Edie said, “could be. Anyway. I kind of forgot to think about how weird she was being, because after I said I would do it, she started telling me all the shit we have to do when we get back…”

I felt a wave of exhaustion. “Don’t tell me we have practice tonight.”

Edie winced.

“Oh, Jesus. What do we have to do?”

“You don’t have to do it,” Edie said. “I do. I mean, me and Dan Dooras and Sergei Romanov…we have to convince Devon Shine, Mickey Eisenberg, and Nicholas Westerbeck to join ATAT.”

What? This couldn’t be right. Other than Cullen, those three were the guys at Midvale absolutely least likely to agree to joining something like ATAT. “Impossible,” I said. “She’s got to think of other people.”

“Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan said there are no other people. I mean, she knows the students really well. She says with this team, we have a chance of winning. But without even one of these people, she says there’s no way. She says these seven people are basically the only really smart people in the whole school.”

I opened my mouth and then shut it. Mrs. Gwynne-Vaughan was probably right about that. Sergei was just a crazy math and science genius. A rumor had circulated that Midvale paid
him
to go here. He actually did his own research—it was on lobsters but apparently it had ramifications for humans. Mickey Eisenberg knew the outcome and highlights of every
single sporting match in history. Dan had a photographic memory and a creepy obsession with military history. Nicholas, Edie, and I just read constantly and, if I do say so myself, just kind of knew everything about everything. But Devon? Devon was one of Gid’s friends. He was fat and lazy. If he was indeed intelligent, I’d never seen him apply it to anything other than video games, pot cultivation, and the crafting of cruel insults. “I didn’t know Devon was smart.”

“He’s actually my suggestion,” Edie said. “Remember he’s from Seattle? I was in gifted and talented with him in elementary school. He has a 180 IQ. The same as John Stewart Mill.”

Edie wasn’t trying to be funny, but for some reason this really killed me. Devon was a pig who just happened to be an off-the-charts genius. I started to giggle and couldn’t stop. Edie started to laugh too. “Picture Devon as one of those distinguished alumni on the wall in the Admin Hall,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” Edie agreed, “with a pipe in one hand, a joystick in the other, and a joint in his mouth.”

But then reality hit me. I needed to win the scholarship. We needed to get those people on the team. And if a freak like Sergei and a loser like Dan, not to mention Edie—a girl—asked Mickey, Devon, and Nicholas to do anything, the answer was going to be three big fat no’s.

“You have to let me help you,” I said.

I saw Edie giving this some thought. I wasn’t always the most reliable person lately.

“I…I know Nicholas really well,” I said. My face burned with my secret. Edie’s eyes flitted over my face.

“I…I think I know how we can get him to do it,” I said. “But we have to get everyone else first.”

“OK,” Edie said, “Dan and Sergei are coming over to Emerson at two to talk strategy. So…”

And now, of course, Pilar’s plane was landing, she was waking up. As soon as she turned on her cell phone, she had a text message from Gid.

Pilar turned to Madison. The plane was taxiing, and Madison had her eyes closed.

“Do we want to get a ride back from the boys?” she asked.

“Oh, God,” Madison said. “I’m already nauseated from this, and now I’m going to have to watch you flirt with Gideon the whole time. Double nauseating.”

“I’m not into him,” Pilar said. “I mean, he is Gideon Rayburn.”

Madison ignored this. “I’m happy to take the free ride. Write back to your boyfriend.”

“I don’t flirt with him,” Pilar said.

“Whatever,” Madison said. “Then you use him like a flirtation cat toy. He’s like your little suede mousie.”

“Wow,” I said out loud. “That is so true.”

“What?” Edie said. “That the boys are coming over at two?”

I had forgotten I was standing here, in my room. Edie looked at me expectantly, but I couldn’t focus, because Pilar texted back:

I thought I had a few more hours before Gid and Pilar would even see each other. And now they were going to be in a
car—and I would bet money they’d be sitting next to each other—for a whole horrible hour. But I would have a good idea of what to expect. And then once I got a hold of Dr. Whitmeyer, I’d get Pilar out of my head.

“Molly?” Edie’s voice was annoyed, impatient. “Do you want to help me or not?”

“Yes,” I said, grabbing a jacket, hat, and gloves. “I’m…I’m going to go for a walk, and I will be back at two. We’re going to figure this out.”

I ran down the hall. Poor Edie. I thought we’d come together a little bit in the last few minutes. I’d ruined it. Pilar had ruined it. Why couldn’t she just leave my boyfriend alone once and for all?

The woods were cold and dead quiet. There were trails that snaked through a large swath of woods between the campus and the train tracks, and I walked around and around as I watched the first postkiss interaction between Pilar and Gid unfold.

Here’s something I hadn’t expected.

Pilar didn’t even know my name.

So I like Gid and I flirt with him a little. What’s the harm? He likes it. He isn’t even going out with—what’s her name? Monica? Mandy? Molly!—anymore. I hate baggage claim. Eet’s so ugly in here. Why are the ceilings so low? We just got off a plane. Would it kill them to give us a nice high ceiling? And it’s cold in here. At least a lot of people are looking at me. Everyone. The men, the women. The women look mad at me. It makes me feel bad and good at the same time. I have to just ignore everyone, be my own person.
Her Louis Vuitton bag was coming up over the crest and dropping down
to the baggage claim conveyor belt. Pilar ran around the other side of the belt to get it, but it was gone.

“My bag, my bag,” she cried, giving looks of desperate appeal to any man in the baggage claim area who was not standing with another woman. Four or five stepped forward eagerly, ready to offer their services. “Someone took it,” Pilar wailed.

She felt something heavy butting against the back of her leg. She turned around to see Gideon standing there, the weight of his duffle burdening one shoulder, her big Vuitton valise straining against his forearm.

“Hi,” Gid said. I was prepared for thinking he looked good, better than he might have looked if we weren’t broken up, and the fear turned out to be a reasonable one. He was tan and very slim. He had to have put himself on some sort of Nicholas-driven self-improvement kick. He’d gotten a haircut. He’d had something weird going on with his hair where it was cut superstraight across the back and looked like a cat’s hair looks against its collar, but that had been mended.

Gid said, “Do you remember the first time we met? I carried your bag.”

Pilar touched her big silver hoop earrings. She watched as all her eager-beaver helpers slunk away. “I don’t know eef I remember,” she said.

I could tell Gid felt awkward, the way he kept moving from one foot to the other. “It’s OK,” he said. He added, “You’re so tan.”

“Thanks,” Pilar said.
He does look good. Better than usual
.
But I am not going to flirt with him. I am not going to give Madison the satisfaction.

“I saw a shark,” Gideon said.

“I have seen many sharks,” said Pilar.
There is something
about his face that I wish I could change. I don’t know what it is. If it changed I might flirt with him for real and not like Madison said.

“This was a big shark. And it swam right by me.”

“You know,” Pilar said, “sometimes a shark could be magnified by the water and it ees not as big as it looks.”

Gid scowled at her, and he looked cute when he scowled, because he was having fun. “Pilar,” he said. “Seriously. You can be as cool as you want. If you swam by a shark, I swear to God, you would shit yourself.”

Pilar burst out laughing and, at the same time, thought to herself,
I like the way he looks right now. If he looked that way all the time, I could like him.

Madison had been lagging behind, buying eye cream at the duty-free. Now she walked by as Pilar giggled. She whispered, “How’s your little toy velvet mousie?” Pilar stopped laughing abruptly, clamping her hand over her mouth.

“Oh, Geedeon,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “Well. Madison says I flirt with you, but I don’t so much, really, do I?”

This question was, of course, the very definition of what Madison was talking about.

“I don’t know. Keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll let you know.”

Hmm. OK, he looks kind of cute right now.

Cullen sat on a SuperShuttle waiting bench, Madison astride him, smoking a cigarette. They were cousins, and used this relationship to shock people with inappropriate sexual behavior. Pilar could hear snatches of her conversation: Elias, totally amazing, so creative, such an amazing experience.

Nicholas pulled up in the car, and they all lined up at the trunk to put their stuff in. Madison’s bag was tiny, and Cullen
and Gid didn’t have much, but between Nicholas’s scuba stuff and Pilar’s bag, the trunk wouldn’t close. “It’s Pilar’s bag,” Madison said. “I told you not to bring such a giant bag.”

Nicholas got out of the car and studied the problem. “We need something strong to tie it all down,” he said.

“What about my dick?” Cullen suggested.

“I think a bungee cord will do—plus, it’s wider.” Nicholas found one under the spare tire and managed to pull the trunk at least semi-closed. “All right,” he said. “Let’s roll.”

They all folded themselves into the car, Madison and Nicholas up front, Gid and Cullen and Pilar in back. Gid was in the middle. The car smelled of leather and marijuana. It was raining out and warm, and the car didn’t fit five people all that well. Nicolas put on BBC America. It was a program about fish farming in Southeast Asia. “Give me a break, like you like this shit,” Cullen said.