An Education in Ruin Page 5

  “Are you serious, Anastasia?” Ariel cuts her off, shaking her head. She turns to me. “We were only curious if in your overview the student had become the master—or whatever that saying is.”

  This makes Anastasia and me burst out laughing.

  Really, I don’t know what to make of this information. Is the lesson here that Jasper prefers older girls or girls he deems to be smarter than he is?

  Across the beach, Stewart and Daiki help Jasper up, and he walks beside Theo over to the chaperones’ tent.

  “We could ask Stewart how Jasper’s doing,” I say again, bringing the attention back to Anastasia, where she is most comfortable with it being anyway. Jasper seems fine, but Ariel must have the same idea as I do. She says, “Yeah, come on.”

  We stand and walk slowly, weaving to disguise the direct beeline we’re making toward Stewart. But soon we’re close enough that Stewart gets we’re about to come up to him. He is not smooth about it. He grins. He elbows Daiki. He even steps to the side of Daiki, making room for us. Daiki smiles, and I forget what we’re doing here in the first place. I forget my name and the color of the sky and what chocolate tastes like.

  The five of us stand in a semicircle.

  “He’s going to be able to play in the game next week?” Anastasia asks, nodding toward Jasper.

  “Looks like it,” Stewart says. He runs his hand over his thick blond hair.

  Nearby, I watch Jasper returning to a row of towels, where the three of them must’ve laid down their stuff when they arrived. He’s walking normally, but holding a roll of medical tape. Theo’s been sucked away by a group playing cornhole with inflatable boards. Daiki motions to Jasper, sitting on his towel wrapping his foot, and we casually walk over to him.

  Theo’s still holding court at the cornhole game, too busy to notice when we sit down with the boys.

  Jasper’s almost as quiet as I am as everyone continues to chat.

  I’m learning that Jasper doesn’t do anything for the sake of being polite, and that includes small talk. He doesn’t laugh unless he really finds something funny, even if that means he stares blankly as everyone chuckles. He doesn’t ask questions unless he truly doesn’t understand something. Like, “Why are the swim meets so early?” And, “Why didn’t you like having Mr. Hunan as your bio teacher?” He doesn’t make much eye contact with anyone, but it doesn’t seem like he intentionally wants to avoid us or that he’s irritated or uncomfortable that we’ve joined them. Mostly, he seems like his mind is elsewhere.

  It’s not clear when Theo’s noticed we’re sitting with Stewart, Daiki, and Jasper, but I guess he lets his opinion about the obvious flirtation between Stewart and Anastasia be known in other ways. For one, he doesn’t stop to see us despite walking past several times. And when he does approach us, it’s to bring the towels and bags we’ve abandoned on the other side of the beach. He drops them at Anastasia’s feet.

  “It’s almost time to leave,” he says.

  Anastasia starts to protest, but the chaperones begin blowing their whistles, motioning for us to leave.

  Stewart offers to carry Anastasia’s towel since it doesn’t fit in her bag.

  “I’ve got it,” Theo says, casually grabbing her towel and throwing it over his shoulders.

  Everyone from the beach slogs along the trail together to get back to Rutherford’s campus, keeping a tiresome pace thanks to the large group and the bottlenecking that occurs at the narrow and steep parts in the trail.

  Theo surprises me. He’s done with the subtle hints that he might be irritated Anastasia joined Stewart at the beach. He’s downright cheerful. He teases Anastasia like nothing is wrong. He jokes with Stewart the way he jokes with everyone else. Theo the chameleon, blending in however will make him the most popular, whatever pleases the crowd. No matter how he’s really feeling.

  Eight

  That night, we emerge from the bathroom, our high heels tapping against the hardwood, the usual scent of lavender replaced with the smell of perfume. Burberry Brit and Marc Jacobs Daisy and Kate Spade Walk on Air and Chanel Chance. Our collarbones are showing, our shoulders are bare. Our hair is curled. Our fingers hold sparkly rings. Thin bracelets slide down our wrists. Our ears are decorated in pearls or diamonds or gold hoops. Our eyelashes are faux, our nails are painted, our lips are stained and glossed. Our dresses still hit at our knees—this is the one unbreakable dress code rule, it would seem—but they are not made of wool or cotton. We are covered in marbled velvet, Paris chiffon, silk georgette, French crêpe light, duchess satin.

  We crowd the courtyard, merging with the boys as they walk up from their dormitory. They are suited in dark jackets and colorful ties, and their hair is styled instead of just combed. They smell like sandalwood and black pepper and sweet myrrh. Their shoes are polished.

  Rosie said that falling in love has little to do with looks. But this certainly can’t hurt.

  Elena and I laugh about our high heels sinking into the grass on the walk to campus, and upon meeting up with her other friends, we make wagers on what kind of chicken they’ll be serving tonight, between rosemary or lemon and pepper or piccata, and on how many times tonight’s guest speaker will refer to her tenure at Rutherford or casually drop the current net worth of her business. The losers have to wear their shirts inside out on Tuesday and see how long it takes before someone on faculty makes them change.

  I spot Anastasia and Ariel a statue away. They’re easy to find because Theo is easy to find. The crowd pulses off him. I break away from Elena and her friends even though they had me laughing so hard I had to touch up my eye makeup.

  “Stunning,” Theo says when I approach. He kisses my hand like I’m royalty.

  “You look handsome, as always,” I say.

  “I’m starving,” whines Anastasia. She looks around as though she’s hoping to see the cafeteria doors opening to welcome us in. But I know what she’s really doing. She’s looking for Stewart.

  Anastasia has her hip popped slightly, and she is suddenly less fidgety, which can only mean one thing. I scan the crowd until I see them making their way through the courtyard. Stewart and Jasper and Daiki.

  Our timing is off, though, because the very moment Stewart notices Anastasia and waves, the cafeteria doors open, and the faculty signals for us to move inside, where we will be seated according to class year for dinner.

  The cafeteria is dimly lit this evening. More chairs have been brought in, and the tables are covered in maroon tablecloths and centerpieces with large white flowers. After a brief speech by the headmaster welcoming us to the evening’s program, dinner is served. A lovely chicken piccata.

  I try to find Elena and her friends to see their reactions and finally am able to follow the sound of hushed excitement and moans of disappointment coming from a few tables away. I watch as those who chose chicken piccata high-five each other. None of them are looking around the room for me to see my reaction.

  When dinner is over, we’re ushered back to the courtyard for the ice-cream social portion of the evening. Twinkly lights have been set up even though the sky is barely dimming, and a string quartet plays quietly in the corner. Stewart and Anastasia find each other like magnets. She wanders off to refill her punch and grab a macaroon, and the next thing you know, she’s bumped into Stewart, Jasper, and Daiki and is enthralled in what I can only assume is some serious flirting from the looks of it. Lots of tossing her hair and smiling, her eyes zoned in on Stewart as if she might be immune to Daiki’s general hotness, which is in full effect tonight, believe me.

  Ariel and I exchange a look and walk over to them. Theo sees that it’s either join us or entertain the water polo second years, who are calling to him with questions about a goal he scored at last week’s match, and he tags along, too. His first order of business is to mess up his brother’s hair, loosening Jasper’s curls from where they were combed away from his face and letting them tumble forward. It only improves his appearance, in my opinion.

  “
Trying a new look?” Theo says, shaking his head. Jasper makes a quick attempt to push his hair back to how it was, but when it’s clear it’s going to be useless, he gives up. He pops his jaw in annoyance.

  “Remember what happened at the Labor Day event last year?” Stewart says. This makes everyone smile, even Jasper.

  Theo starts to tell me the story. “Dr. Gibson fell asleep while they were introducing him, and when they tried to wake him, he said—”

  Stewart cuts him off to give an impression of Dr. Gibson using a croaked, grouchy voice. “Leave me be, Gertrude!”

  We laugh.

  “Who’s Dr. Gibson?”

  “Only one of the engineers whose contributions to NASA allowed for modern space travel,” Jasper says with a hint of amusement, like he can’t believe I didn’t know this.

  It was the wrong question. Shoot. I should’ve pretended like I knew and looked it up later.

  The quartet stops playing, and Mrs. Flory announces that it’s time for the program to start.

  “Please make your way to the auditorium for ‘An Evening with a Brilliant Mind,’ featuring one of our very own, a recent Rutherford graduate, Rob James.”

  A wave of students plows down the path to the auditorium. I’m certain there wasn’t this kind of rush and excitement for Dr. Gibson. Rob James is a different story. Possibly the most exciting thing to happen to Rutherford alumni since one of their pole-vaulters competed in the Olympics and took the silver medal.

  “I wonder if she’ll be wearing those gold shoes,” Anastasia says as we curve past the west campus tower.

  “She always wears them,” Ariel says. A well-known fact. For public appearances, Rob James is always in a white suit with gold jewelry and gold pumps.

  Rob James graduated from Rutherford only three years ago. Her name is actually Roberta Jane Witherby, but for as long as she’s been making waves in the business world and headlines in the regular world, she’s been going by Rob James.

  “I hear she takes a shot of wheatgrass before every speech, and sometimes you can see it in her teeth,” Ariel says.

  “How close to her do you think you’re going to be? Not close enough to see wheatgrass clinging to her teeth.” Theo shakes his head.

  The big deal about Rob James isn’t that she changed her name or that she graduated valedictorian from Rutherford. Rob is only twenty, and she’s already invented a device that’s supposed to revolutionize how people take intravenous medicine. It’s an implant that can alter the rate at which your body absorbs the medicine by detecting your temperature and DNA coding and distributing the medicine accordingly—essentially tailoring the intake to a person-by-person basis, since medicine reacts differently depending on a person’s DNA and therefore needs to be administered differently. Her company is called Robames Inc. It earned a substantial backing from investors—my father included—during its R&D stages, but after taking the products to the market, is currently worth over $5 billion. That’s billion with a B.

  “I heard from the girls who graduated with her that she used to wash her hair with rose water because she wanted to smell like roses,” Anastasia says. Stewart nods like this is something that actually interests him very much.

  “I thought she smelled like the tears of Bruce Flannery and Elouise Jerkins.” Theo leans toward me. “Those were the people she beat for valedictorian.”

  “I imagine now she smells exclusively of money,” says Ariel.

  “Money and arrogance,” Jasper adds. An interesting comment considering he interned at Robames over the summer.

  I’m the only one of Anastasia’s friends who hasn’t said something about Rob James. I have to remind her of why I’m here, why she likes having me around.

  “I hear her company might be in trouble,” I say.

  “No bueno. What kind of trouble?” Stewart says.

  “Did your dad tell you this?” Anastasia is enthralled. “He’s a Robames investor, isn’t he?”

  “So are our parents,” says Theo.

  “And mine,” Stewart says. “My grandparents, too.”

  “Literally everyone and their mom,” Ariel says.

  “She hit Rutherford alumni up for money hard, and she knocked it out of the park,” Anastasia says. “But why do you think her company is in trouble, Collins?”

  Here we go. “There’s an investigation. Company documents were subpoenaed.”

  “An investigation for what?” Ariel asks.

  “I don’t know. I only remember my dad saying certain documents had to be turned over.”

  “Doesn’t this kind of thing happen all the time to new, innovative companies?” Stewart says.

  “That sounds like something your parents must be telling themselves so they can sleep at night,” Ariel says.

  The problem is Stewart’s right. When my dad was bemoaning about the subpoenas, he did so with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. Business as usual; nothing strange about this hiccup, a typical annoyance. But it makes my story much less juicy, much less valuable to Anastasia.

  “Maybe,” is how I respond.

  The path widens and steepens as we approach the auditorium. A girl a few feet ahead of us trips. We take note and slow down. Walking in heels at this gradation over a path made bumpy by overgrown roots is no joke. Theo loops his arm around Anastasia at the same time that Stewart extends his arm to offer her assistance. Ariel takes it, so his gesture doesn’t get rejected completely. Daiki, a damn hero, notices a girl a few feet ahead of us struggling and helps her down the path. Jasper and I look at each other at the same time. Since he’s closest to me, he offers me his arm; being polite, I suppose.

  Jasper clears his throat in a way that startles me. I notice his forehead is sort of damp. His eyes jump nervously from the ground to his friends to directly in front of him. Jasper doesn’t like a damsel in academic distress, but maybe he likes one in high-heel distress wearing a strapless dress and smelling like amber and vanilla. Maybe he knows I like him, that I’ve been staring at him and publicly calling him mysterious, and that’s what’s making him nervous. This is why Stewart and Anastasia need to continue their courtship and provide us with an excuse to be around each other. Look at the possibilities already.

  Ariel says, “I hate heels. Sure, they’re pretty, but they’re completely useless unless you need to stab someone in the eye.”

  “Damn,” Stewart says, chuckling. He’s not used to Ariel’s comments the way Theo and Anastasia are, who nodded along as she spoke.

  “I’m definitely finding her if the apocalypse strikes,” Daiki says to Jasper and me.

  “Same, too,” I reply. In the split-second decision on whether to say same or me, too, this is what my brain came up with thanks to Daiki and his jaw-dropping face. He’s a gentleman, so he pretends he didn’t hear me, but Jasper raises his eyebrow at me as we join the crowd getting swallowed by the auditorium for this evening’s program.

  Nine

  We file into the auditorium. It’s the most modern building on campus aside from the athletic facilities, which get updated practically every year. The rows are stacked, and the seats are a deep red to match the traditional curtains.

  I end up sitting next to Jasper and Ariel. Stewart and Anastasia are beside each other with Theo on Anastasia’s other side and Daiki beside him.

  As I watch the rest of the student body enter, I spot Sebastian, who is walking down the aisle to his seat with his hand resting lightly on Joyce’s back.

  I hear Ariel sigh beside me and wonder if she was watching him, too. I don’t ask her.

  The lights flash, signaling us to be quiet. The Rutherford event coordinator, Mrs. Brevard, walks across the stage. She introduces Rob James to the crowd, giving a nod to her amazing grades, her inventive thinking, the dedication she put into seeing through the development of her idea, and, because this is Rutherford, after all, a place where money matters, she talks about the net worth of Robames. A real achievement, she says.

  “We’ll see, though,” A
nastasia whispers to me, and I’m pleased that she seems to be up and running with this bit of gossip I’ve provided. Even if it’s not that juicy at all.

  We clap enthusiastically as the auditorium gets dark and a single spotlight appears. When Rob James steps into the light, the room erupts. A much bigger hit than last year, I suspect. Everyone stands except for Jasper, who seems to have the attitude that this whole ordeal is a waste of his time. Theo yanks him up by the elbow, and in the end, he is clapping along with everyone else as Rob James takes her time waving and walking to the center of the stage.

  She is in her usual white and gold, but her hair, usually swept up in a loose ponytail for her appearances, is down and slightly wavy. It’s the way her hair was in her Rutherford senior photo, something splashed around the media, and also included in tonight’s program. I wonder if this is for us, her hairstyle tailored for her specific audience as much as her speech.

  “How’s it going out there, Rutherford?” she asks. Her microphone is hands-free, so she’s able to wave and point to the crowd with both her hands. She waits as we clap again. “I have to tell you, it’s so strange being back here. I’d always dreamed I’d get to return like this—with knowledge and wisdom and experience to share.”

  Next to me, Jasper scoffs. “She’s been out for barely three years. So much knowledge and experience, I’m sure.”

  “Shut up,” Theo whispers.

  “The ability to innovate is within everyone. All of us can do it. We only need to harness the energy; find the bravery to believe in ourselves and the strength and perseverance to let others believe in us, too.”

  She launches into the story of how the idea for the Roba-Fix came to her the first week of college, during a walk through the Yale campus in the middle of the night when she was taking a study break and getting fresh air. She tells us she knew she had something special and, despite not getting any support or encouragement from her peers and being told by many of her professors that she was too young and that she was wasting her time, she worked hard to develop a conceptual model and business plan.