One day, Emily was sitting on a bench in Harvard’s leafy quad when a football hit her square in the face, knocking her onto the ground. When she looked up in shock, a blond man in a crimson sweatshirt was standing over her.
“Gil Arnold,” he said after apologizing profusely.
He took Emily out for a drink, and then dinner, and then the rest is history. They married the week after graduation and the Krokodiloes, Harvard’s oldest a cappella group, performed at the reception. Within just a few years, Gil built a multibillion-dollar hedge fund in Manhattan and the Arnolds decided to plant roots in Gil’s hometown, Gold Coast.
Emily was hesitant to leave Manhattan and her and Gil’s close friends, the Sullivans, whose daughter Kara had started crawling around with baby Shaila. But Gil’s other childhood friend, Winslow Calloway, had just moved back home and snagged a plot on the beach. Wouldn’t it be so nice to join them and be near the ocean with all that space? The fact that their kids could go to the best private school on the East Coast, which would only be a few miles away from their home, sealed the deal for Emily.
And so, Shaila was indoctrinated with Crimson pride from the moment she emerged from Emily Arnold née Araskog’s womb. Swaddled in a ruby red blanket, little baby Shaila was told it would be her destiny to follow in her parents’ footsteps.
—
Twenty-four hours after the news about Graham broke, I’m lying in bed staring at my phone. I scroll through the texts, past Adam’sadiosmessage before heading back to school andpast Henry’snight, babenote, until I find Rachel’s unfamiliar number.
I wonder if she’s thinking about me as much as I’m thinking about her. She had to know that we would see the article in theGazette,but did she know that no one would want to deal with it?
I type out what I want to say and stare at the letters dancing on the screen. I picture Shaila on the morning of initiation, sipping from a mug of coffee while she laughed, nervous energy coursing through her limbs. I can see her so clearly when I close my eyes. Her sunny face and long, thick lashes, daring me to betray her by responding to Rachel. But I also see the Players, and all of us promising just last night that we wouldn’t get involved. I hear Adam’s comforting voice. “Rachel is nuts,” he’d said at Diane’s.
But what if she’s not?
I bite my lip and close my eyes, shoving Shaila, my friends, and even Adam from my mind. I make a decision. I turn my back on them.
Let’s talk.
I hit send.
SEVEN
“I CALL THISmeeting of the Players to order!” Nikki announces, smacking a plastic gavel on the coffee table. The six of us are sprawled around Nikki’s living room for the first official tribunal of the year. Piles of bagels and schmear, courtesy of Nikki’s parents’ credit card, are stacked on the table. But no one’s ready to start just yet.
Henry sits between my legs on the floor and furiously scrolls through Twitter, reading some thread by his favoriteNew Yorkerreporter, who just published a new investigation.
“Man, this dude is a legend,” Henry murmurs. “I’d kill to interview him about sourcing.”
I pat his head like a puppy.
“Dude, I can probably hook it up,” Robert says. “My dad knows all those writers.”
“Your dad knows all the writers atTheNew Yorker?” Quentin asks, skeptical.
“Uh, yeah. I grew up in the city, you know.”
“No! Really?” Nikki says, feigning shock. “None of us knew that!”
“Just remember who got you fakes this summer,” Robert says. “I’m the one with that connect.”
We all grumble and roll our eyes, shoving each other with elbows and pillows. I check my phone, more out of hope than necessity, but there’s nothing there. Waiting for Rachel to respond has been torture.
No one brings up Graham or the article in theGazette. Instead we’re pretending like nothing happened, like we could still go about our normal Players’ rituals as usual. Glossing over things is a Gold Coast tradition and I am happy to follow suit. No one needs to know I texted the enemy.
I avert my attention to Marla, who stares intently at the screen in her lap, the Dartmouth admissions portal open in front of her. She applied there early with hopes of walking on the field hockey team.
“You know we won’t hear for a few months, right?” I whisper. Acceptances were still so far off, I had to force myself not to think about them.
Marla throws her head back against the couch. “Ugh, I know. I’m obsessive.”
Quentin grumbles next to us. “Don’t I know it.” He’s submitted his portfolio to Yale’s art program and is dying to hear back, too. “Cannot believe we have to wait eons for this.”
I rest my head on Quentin’s soft shoulder and try to push thoughts of being at Brown with Adam out of my head, of crushing that Women in Science and Engineering scholarship exam I’d only get to takeifI got in. It’s too much to wrap my brain around. “Uh, hello!” Nikki yells before banging her gavel again. “The Toastmaster is talking here.” As president of the student councilandToastmaster of the Players, I think it’s safe to say the power has gone to her head just a little.
