Ms. Alvarez’s face was pale, but she set up straight.
“No!” I exclaimed before she could speak. “She didn’t do anything. It was my idea—”
“It’s all right, Emery,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Yes. I arranged for her to apply and was so very proud when I learned she’d been accepted.”
“I do not appreciate this betrayal,” my father said. “I expend a great deal of money so that this school maintains its high standards. I do not expect to be stabbed in the back by its faculty.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what—”
“Be silent,Emery.”
“This is a very serious matter,” Dr. Sterling said. “We cannot have teachers superseding the wishes of our parents. Ms. Alvarez, as you are a new teacher without tenure, we feel it is appropriate that you finish out the remaining days of this school year. You will not be invited back for the next.”
“No!” I cried. “Please don’t do this. It was all my fault—”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I knew the risks and would happily do it again.”
“That will do, Alicia,” Dr. Sterling said. “You may go.”
I could hardly meet her eyes, shame and regret burning my face in icy hot tingles.
She smiled delicately and touched my hand. “Be brave, Emery. Be brave.”
I wasn’t allowed to finish out the day; instead, my father walkedme to his car. Colin held open the door, tall and imposing, saying nothing.
“You’ve been quite busy,” my father said after a long silence.
“My prom design is complicated,” I said dully.
“I meant this little stunt about applying to UCLA. Not to mention, I ran into Joe Berger from the county clerk’s office in Providence today. He said something very interesting to me. He said congratulations. I asked him what for, and do you know what he said?”
My heart thumped so hard I could barely breathe, and my hands went cold in my lap.
“He replied, ‘On your daughter’s marriage, of course.’”
Oh God…
“Apparently, an Emery Wallace married an Alexander Ford several weeks ago. I could not quite believe what he was telling me. I told him it must’ve been a mistake, because that’s what it is. A terrible, terrible mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake,” I managed through numb lips. “I love Xander, and I’m going to California.”
“You’re doing no such thing,” Dad said, unbothered. “Emery, you’re a young and foolish little girl who doesn’t know what the world is like. But I do. It is a game that must be played to win, because the moment you take your eyes off the board, it swoops in with an iron mallet and crushes you. I am providing protection. Something young Mr. Ford could never do.”
“That’s not true. He’s a genius with a bright future, and he’s kind and good…and he loves me.”
“And he’s willing to up and leave for California too?”
“Well…no. He can’t. At least not yet, or maybe—”
“Of course not. You’ve been duped. He is the poor son of a weak-minded person. The son of an enemy, no less, who cost me twenty million dollars in regulatory fees and now has theaudacityto marry my daughter in secret, like a thief in the night, taking what does not belong to him.”
“That’s not…that’s not what happened,” I said, my tongue tying like it always did when I tried to stand up to my father. Anger and frustration turning to tears that he read as hysteria. An overemotional girl who didn’t know what she wanted. “You don’t understand. Xander is—”
“I’m going to say this one time, and one time only, Emery. You are never to see that boy again. Next week we’ll go back to the courthouse and get that ridiculous marriage annulled and restore some sanity and common sense to our household.”
“No,” I said faintly, feeling as if I were clinging to the edge of a cliff. “No, we’re going to prom together—”
“You’re not going to prom. Senator Harrington and his family are coming over for a little cocktail party Saturday night.”
